Participant Testimonials
Thank you so much for the organizers for including me. I am a prof at York University. I have worked on other things with Toni Pitassi, Russell Impagliazzo and a few others at this conference, but Proof Complexity has not really been my area. For years, I have been wanting to be able to catch up and learn all about this fine field. At the last minute someone was not able to go and I stepped in. It was a wonderful opportunity. I learned so much. Brilliant people. Brilliant talks. And expect to work more in the area with these people.
The first item is true in all details listed. I learned some new results and got valuable recommendations on what old results I still have to learn. I learned a recently found solution to a problem I have been working on. I made scientific progress during discussions with another participant in some ongoing work started before the workshop. With yet another participant, whom I never met before, we agreed to do some joint work.Two more participants gave me valuable hints on how to proceed with some current work. To summarize, for me this workshop has been scientifically very fruitful, in fact, it establishes some kind of record in this respect.
This is a very quick and spontaneous response, since I have returned back to an impressive backlog at KTH Royal Institute of Technology and am currently rather swamped. Regardless of this, however, I just wanted to let you know that this is very possibly the best workshop I have ever attended. And I spoke to several other participants who felt the same. Proof complexity is an exciting field, that touches on the very deepest open questions in theoretical computer science, but also has close connections to applications (via so-called SAT solving). My personal impression is that the field has been struggling a bit in the last decade, but during this workshop I heard about several new results that are exciting news of progress. The workshop provided invaluable opportunities to meet colleagues and initiate new research, as well as to follow up on ongoing projects. Personally I started two new research projects as a result of this workshop and I hope that interesting things will come out of them (in one we already had some preliminary results while in Banff). Also, it was very valuable to be able to meet and discuss with some of the giants of the field in the relaxed informal atmosphere of the BIRS lounge, and to ask their opinion and advice on various questions. And last but not least, the very venue itself, with its breathtaking beauty, was amazing. Some of the best research discussions I had during the week was when hiking to the Hoodoos and during our outing to Lake Louise. I can only fervently wish that I will be able to visit BIRS soon again...
Thank you very much for this opportunity. This is the area in which I was very active before, but not lately, and this trip was really really helpful to me to get reconnected. I in fact even composed a short list of selected problems asked at the workshop for the benefit of our students (and everyone interested) and it is likely that I will start new research project(s) with other participants.
I had a great time at the workshop, making contact with old friends and learning of new ideas in the area of proof complexity in the wonderful and relaxing atmosphere of the Banff centre. The invitation also prompted me to produce a talk, which I presented. The comments from other participants, particularly Paul Beame, were very useful to me, and led me to correct a serious error in my research -- fortunately not fatal to the main result. Many thanks to BIRS and to the organizers for a great workshop!
