Prof. Silvio Micali, who was awarded the Turing Award in 2012, had a meeting with students from Chu Kochen Honors College, Zhejiang University on September 16th, 2018. The lecture was co-chaired by Prof. Ying Songmin, Vice Dean of Chu Kochen Honors College and Prof. Cai Liang, Vice Dean of School of Software Technology.
During the discussion, Prof. Micali expressed his optimistic attitude towards the development of blockchain, as he explained that block chain has provided people with a convenient and fast way to cooperate on the Internet, which may profoundly affect all aspects of human society in the future. Blockchain “is typically managed by a peer-to-peer network collectively adhering to a protocol for inter-node communication and validating new blocks.” It can be considered secure by design and exemplify a distributed computing system with high Byzantine fault tolerance. In response to students’ question about which major is closely related to blockchain, Prof. Micali shared his learning experiences and suggested that students should stand at the intersection of disciplines to explore the charm of interdisciplinary innovation. Prof. Micali expressed that the meaning of science is to achieve something that cannot be done in the current world, and this is what makes it interesting and exciting.
Prof. Micali brought to students not only the advanced knowledge about blockchain, but also the inspiration and motivation for students to devote themselves to scientific researching. We believe that through this communication, students will nourish stronger interest in research and become qualified scientific researchers in the future.
Note:
Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for computing Machinery (ACM) to an individual selected for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to the computer field. It is named after Alan Turing, a British scientist and the pioneer of computer science. Turing Award demands a lot of the award-winners and has an astringent procedure when deciding on the eventual victors. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in computer science and the “Nobel Prize of computing”.
