Meeting Here Next Week About Switching Theory

Leading experts from all over the world, including some from Iron Curtain countries, will gather at the University over the vacation to take part in an "International Symposium on the Theory of Switching."

Of the approximately 50 papers and speeches to be delivered at the symposium, 14 will be by people from outside the United States, including 4 by Russians, one by a Yugoslavian, and one by a Czechoslovakian. Others will come from Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium, Spain, The Netherlands, and Germany.

Howard H. Aiken, professor of Mathematics and director of the Harvard Computation Laboratory, said that he expects about 850 people to be at the symposium altogether, including speakers. The papers are being delivered by invitation only, thus assuring that the most distinguished experts in the world will be there, he explained.

Switching theory is the mathematical theory of electric circuits components having only two positions, for example, on and off. Their two-position nature allows them to be used for solving problems involving the binary rather than the decimal counting system. (The binary system has only two symbols, 0 and 1, as opposed to ten symbols in the decimal system.) The theory can be applied to the design of such devices as automatic computers, language translating machines, automatic controlling devices, and data processing. computers, language translating machines, automatic controlling devices, and data processing.

Switching Theory in Russia

Michael A. Gavrilov, professor, Doctor of Technical Sciences at the Academy of Sciences of Moscow, U.S.S.R., will deliver an address at the first meeting on April 2, on the "Investigation of Switching Theory in the Soviet Union." Gavrilov, Aiken said, is the author of one of the three basic books in the field.

Although the symposium is being sponsored by Bell Telephone Laboratories, I.B.M., R.C.A., and Sperry Rand Corp., most of the speakers will be from universities. Aiken expects, however, that between 60 and 70 percent of the guests will be from industry.

Aiken himself will deliver the opening address on April 2, to be followed by a welcoming address by Dean Bundy, and opening remarks by John H. Van Vleck, Dean of Engineering and Applied Physics.

The conference will last through Friday, April 5, and will be held either in Sanders Theatre or New Lecture Hall, depending on the number of guests, Aiken said. There will be a banquet on Wednesday night at which David T. W. McCord '21, executive secratary of the Harvard Fund Council, will be toastmaster.