CMSA Math-Science Literature Lecture: Shiing-Shen Chern as a Great Geometer of 20th Century
VirtualShing-Tung Yau (Harvard) Title: Shiing-Shen Chern as a Great Geometer of 20th Century Video | Slides | Article
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CMSA Math-Science Literature Lecture: The ADHM construction of Yang-Mills instantons
VirtualSimon Donaldson (Stony Brook) Title: The ADHM construction of Yang-Mills instantons Abstract: In 1978 (Physics Letters 65A) Atiyah, Hitchin, Drinfeld and Manin (ADHM) described a construction of the general solution of the Yang-Mills instanton equations over the 4-sphere using linear algebra. This was a major landmark in the modern interaction between geometry and physics, and the […]
CMSA Math-Science Literature Lecture: Why do some universities have separate departments of statistics?
VirtualDonald Rubin (Harvard) Title: Why do some universities have separate departments of statistics? And are they all anachronisms, destined to follow the path of other dinosaurs? Video | Slides
CMSA Math-Science Literature Lecture: Rationality questions in algebraic geometry
VirtualJoe Harris (Harvard) Title: Rationality questions in algebraic geometry Abstract: Over the course of the history of algebraic geometry, rationality questions — motivated by both geometric and arithmetic problems — have often driven the subject forward. The rationality or irrationality of cubic hypersurfaces in particular have led to the development of abelian integrals (dimension one), birational geometry (dimension […]
CMSA Math-Science Literature Lecture: Quantum Groups
VirtualPavel Etingof (MIT) Title: Quantum Groups Abstract: The theory of quantum groups developed in mid 1980s from attempts to construct and understand solutions of the quantum Yang-Baxter equation, an important equation arising in quantum field theory and statistical mechanics. Since then, it has grown into a vast subject with profound connections to many areas of mathematics, such as […]
CMSA Math-Science Literature Lecture: Black Hole Formation
VirtualLydia Bieri (University of Michigan) Title: Black Hole Formation Abstract: Can black holes form through the focusing of gravitational waves? This was an outstanding question since the early days of general relativity. In his breakthrough result of 2008, Demetrios Chrstodoulou answered this question with “Yes!” In order to investigate this result, we will delve deeper into the […]
CMSA Math-Science Literature Lecture: My life and times with the sporadic simple groups
VirtualRobert Griess (University of Michigan) Title: My life and times with the sporadic simple groups Abstract: Five sporadic simple groups were proposed in 19th century and 21 additional ones arose during the period 1965-1975. There were many discussions about the nature of finite simple groups and how sporadic groups are placed in mathematics. While in mathematics grad […]
CMSA Math-Science Literature Lecture: From string theory and Moonshine to vertex algebras
VirtualBong Lian (Brandeis) Title: From string theory and Moonshine to vertex algebras Abstract: This is a brief survey of the early historical development of vertex algebras, beginning in the seventies from Physics and Representation Theory. We shall also discuss some of the ideas that led to various early formulations of the theory’s foundation, and their relationships, as […]
CMSA Math-Science Literature Lecture: Four-dimensional topology
VirtualCiprian Manolescu (Stanford) Title: Four-dimensional topology Abstract: I will outline the history of four-dimensional topology. Some major events were the work of Donaldson and Freedman from 1982, and the introduction of the Seiberg-Witten equations in 1994. I will discuss these, and then move on to what has been done in the last 20 years, when the […]
CMSA Math-Science Literature Lecture: Hodge structures and the topology of algebraic varieties
VirtualClaire Voisin (Collège de France) Title: Hodge structures and the topology of algebraic varieties Abstract: We review the major progress made since the 50’s in our understanding of the topology of complex algebraic varieties. Most of the results we will discuss rely on Hodge theory, which has some analytic aspects giving the Hodge and Lefschetz decompositions, and […]
CMSA Math-Science Literature Lecture: Area-minimizing integral currents and their regularity
VirtualCamillo De Lellis (IAS) Title: Area-minimizing integral currents and their regularity Abstract: Caccioppoli sets and integral currents (their generalization in higher codimension) were introduced in the late fifties and early sixties to give a general geometric approach to the existence of area-minimizing oriented surfaces spanning a given contour. These concepts started a whole new subject which has […]