The Dining Philosophers are the University of Pennsylvania's Computer Science interest group. We hold events for the Computer Science department, including guest lectures, faculty lunches, and social events. One of our members sits in on the faculty meetings to represent the undergraduate Computer Science body. We also host an annual programming contest for high school students called the Philadelphia Classic. It's also a great place to get to know other computer science students and stay connected within the computer science community at large.

Why are we called the Dining Philosophers? Our name comes from a classic computer science problem. A group of philosophers sit around a table with a plate in front of them and a chopstick in between each person. All the philosophers do is eat or think. The philosophers have to pick up chopsticks on each side to be able to eat but they can only pick them up one at a time. Once a philosopher tries to eat, it won't put down a chopstick until it finishes eating. This is a classic case of a possible deadlock scenario. If each philospher picks up the chopstick to their left, then none of the philosophers will be able to eat and since none of them will also put down the chopstick, all of them will be stuck. More information about this problem can be found here,

Members: Matt Evans, Class of '09. Jeffrey Weinstein, Class of '09. David Winchell, Class of '09. Jonathan Coveney, Class of '09. Mark Knichel, Class of '09. Joshua Magarick, Class of '09. Zach Goldberg, Class of'10. Chris Sulmone, Class of '10. Amin Lakhani, Class of '11. Zach Meister, Class of '11.