Jan Arne Telle

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Address: 
University of Bergen  
Department of Informatics
Postboks 7800, 5020 Bergen, NORWAY
Office:   : HIB room 3152
Ph.       : +47 55-58-40-36
Fx.       : +47 55-58-41-99
Home      : +47 55-96-22-16
E-mail    : telle-at-ii-dot-uib-dot-no

Professor and member of the Algorithms Research Group. 

Spring 2013 I am teaching INF 235 - Complexity Theory.

Fall 2013 I am teaching the new course INF 207-Theory of Social Networks, based on the textbook Networks, Crowds and Markets by Easley and Kleinberg.

List of my publications with some hyperlinks

For more information please contact me directly or look at my CV in pdf CV in ps

My research deals mainly with graph algorithms. 
To the question 'Why graph algorithms in computer science?' I find David Eppstein's answer exemplary: 
The short answer is that graphs can be used to reason symbolically about any kind of pairwise relationship between any kind of entity, 
and that we like to think about pairwise relationships because unary relationships aren't powerful enough and k-way relationships for 
k>2 add extra complication without adding any real power. So already in 1736 Euler was using graphs to model transportation 
connections between pairs of places (the bridges of Konigsberg; more modernly this idea shows up in airline ticket planning, where 
the vertices represent airports and the edges represent flights, or mapquest-like route planning, where the vertices represent road 
intersections and the edges represent intersection-free segments of roads). We have graphs representing people and social networks 
connecting them (online friendships, sexual contacts, parenthood, coauthorship, etc). We have graphs representing subroutines in a 
computer program and caller-callee relations between them. We have graphs representing web pages and html links between them. 
We have graphs representing proteins in your body and the chemical interactions they participate in. Etc etc.
Graphs are powerful because the same kinds of problems and algorithms turn out to be important in many of these different applications. 
So by taking away the application-specific features of all of those different problems and turning them into something as abstract as 
a graph, we only have to solve these problems once instead of repeatedly solving the same problems in different disguises.


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Sometimes I like to while away my time reading some good quotes, aphorisms, poems:



"Challenge your (mathematical) intuition, because when it fails you can really learn something new."
"Agree with me if I seem to speak the truth" (Socrates)
"If the student only takes over something that is offered he does not learn.
   He comes to learn only when he experiences what he takes as something he himself already has...
   The genuine teacher differs from the pupil only in that he can learn better and that he more
   generally wants to learn. In all teaching the teacher learns the most." (Heidegger)
"...while in the past it was regarded as the purpose of our programs to instruct our computers, a shift 
   to the opposite view could now take place, viz. that it is the purpose of our machines to execute our 
   programs." (E.Dijkstra -on the appearance of mathematical semantics for programming languages)
"The computer is useless. It can only answer questions."  (Pablo Picasso)
"I would rather have today's algorithms on yesterday's computers than vice versa." (P.Toint) 
"True wisdom is to know the extent of what you don't know  
   quite as well as you know what you do know." 
"The universe may be as great as they say, but it wouldn't be missed if it didn't exist." (P.Hein)
"If this is tea then give me coffee and if this is coffee then give me tea."  (Airline passenger)
"Do you really believe in this superstition? Well, I have been told it works even if you do not 
   believe in it." (Niels Bohr -commenting on a horseshoe by the entrance to his laboratory)

"A ritual to read to each other.
 ------------------------------
If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider-
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give - yes or no, or maybe -
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep."
   (William Stafford)

"Look for awhile at the China Cat Sunflower,
    proud-walking jingle in the midnight sun.
    Copper-dome Bodhi drip a silver kimono,
    like a crazy-quilt stargown, 
    through a dream night wind.

    Krazy Kat peeking through a lace bandana,
    like a one-eyed Cheshire,
    like a diamond-eye Jack.
    A leaf of all colors, 
    plays a golden string fiddle,
    to a double-e waterfall over my back.

    Comic book colors on a violin river,
    crying Leonardo words,
    from out a silk trombone.
    I rang a silent bell,
    beneath a shower of pearls,
    in the eagle wing palace,
    of the Queen Chinee." (Robert Hunter)

"Is my understanding only blindness to my own lack of understanding?
    It often seems so to me." (Ludwig Wittgenstein)
"We have not succeeded in answering all of our problems. The answers we have
    found only serve to raise a whole set of new questions. In some ways
    we feel we are as confused as ever, but we believe we are confused 
    on a higher level and about more important things." (Source unknown)