Home Page for Steve Russ


photo of Steve Russ

"Bolzano's Wissenschaftslehre, published in 1837, ... far surpasses everything that world literature has to offer in the way of a systematic sketch of logic."
Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations I. 61 Appendix, 1900
"The development of Bolzano's logic is thus guided by two strong principles: a commitment to make logic serve human ends, and an insistence on rigor in his characteristic sense ..... his logic might therefore be described as formalism with a human face."
Paul Rusnock Bolzano's Philosophy and the Emergence of Modern Mathematics, Rodopi, 2000, p.92
The 200th anniversary of the publication of the 'Beyträge zu einer begründeteren Darstellung der Mathematik' (1810) will be celebrated with a conference in Prague in April 2010.




Research

My research is concerned with Empirical Modelling and with the history of ideas (especially those ideas involved in mathematics and computing). Sometimes I manage to combine these two interests. I have for many years been interested in the work of Bernard Bolzano and I have made translations of a substantial selection of his mathematical works. These have been published in 2004 by Oxford University Press as The Mathematical Works of Bernard Bolzano (reprinted 2006).

Teaching

For many years I have been the organiser, or a major contributor, to:

CS126 Design of Information Structures

CS233 Database Systems

CS330 History of Computing

CS405 Introduction to Empirical Modelling

In the current year I am module organiser for:

CS131 Mathematics for Computer Scientists II

and making substantial contribution to:

CS405 Introduction to Empirical Modelling

Administration

Steering Committee of the Computer and Business Studies (CBS) degree

Secretary to the Second Year CBS Examination Board

Convener of the CBS Student-Staff Liaison Committee