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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250408T090000
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DTSTAMP:20260417T005618
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UID:10003731-1744102800-1744108200@cmsa.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:CMSA/Tsinghua Math-Science Literature Lecture: Scott Sheffield (MIT): Yang-Mills theory and random surfaces
DESCRIPTION:CMSA/Tsinghua Math-Science Literature Lecture \nDate: April 8\, 2025 \nTime: 9:00 – 10:30 am ET \nLocation: CMSA G10\, 20 Garden Street\, Cambridge MA & via Zoom \nSpeaker: Scott Sheffield (MIT) \nTitle: Yang-Mills theory and random surfaces \nAbstract: The Clay Institute famously offered one million dollars to anyone who could mathematically construct and understand a certain continuum version of “Yang-Mills gauge theory.” This theory is the basis of the standard model of physics\, and the heart of the problem is to understand the so-called “Wilson loop expectations.” Following recent work with Sky Cao and Minjae Park\, I will explain how the “Wilson loop expectations” in a lattice Yang-Mills model are equivalent to “insertion costs” of loops in a related random-closed-surface-ensemble model. In a sense\, these results allow us to convert one famously hard problem into another presumably hard problem. But the new problem is all about random surfaces and random permutations\, and it has a lot of relationships with and similarities to other problems we understand (think domino tilings\, random planar maps\, Young tableaux and symmetric group representation theory\, and the Weingarten calculus). It gives us some intuition for *why* certain things should be true like the “area law” or “exponential correlation decay” (what physicists call “quark confinement” or “mass gap”) even if we can’t prove all of them yet. \n\nBeginning in Spring 2020\, the CMSA began hosting a lecture series on literature in the mathematical sciences\, with a focus on significant developments in mathematics that have influenced the discipline\, and the lifetime accomplishments of significant scholars.
URL:https://cmsa.fas.harvard.edu/event/mathscilit2025_ss/
LOCATION:CMSA Room G10\, CMSA\, 20 Garden Street\, Cambridge\, MA\, 02138\, United States
CATEGORIES:Math Science Literature Lecture Series,Public Lecture,Special Lectures
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cmsa.fas.harvard.edu/media/Mathlit_Sheffield_11x17-2.jpg
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250417T160000
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CREATED:20250108T143958Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250422T182732Z
UID:10003655-1744905600-1744909200@cmsa.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Fifth Annual Yip Lecture | Scott Aaronson (UT Austin): How Much Math Is Knowable?
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Scott Aaronson\, Department of Computer Science\, University of Texas\, Austin \nScott Aaronson is the founding director at the Quantum Information Center at the University of Texas at Austin. \nDate: April 17\, 2025 \nTime: 4:00-5:00 pm ET  (Reception following in the Math Common Room) \nLocation: Harvard Science Center Hall A \n  \nTitle: How Much Math Is Knowable? \nAbstract: Theoretical computer science has over the years sought more and more refined answers to the question of which mathematical truths are knowable by finite beings like ourselves\, bounded in time and space and subject to physical laws.  I’ll tell a story that starts with Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem and Turing’s discovery of uncomputability.  I’ll then introduce the spectacular Busy Beaver function\, which grows faster than any computable function.  Work by me and Yedidia\, along with recent improvements by O’Rear and Riebel\, has shown that the value of BB(745) is independent of the axioms of set theory; on the other end\, an international collaboration proved last year that BB(5) = 47\,176\,870.  I’ll speculate on whether BB(6) will ever be known\, by us or our AI successors.  I’ll next discuss the P!=NP conjecture and what it does and doesn’t mean for the limits of machine intelligence.  As my own specialty is quantum computing\, I’ll summarize what we know about how scalable quantum computers\, assuming we get them\, will expand the boundary of what’s mathematically knowable.  I’ll end by talking about hypothetical models even beyond quantum computers\, which might expand the boundary of knowability still further\, if one is able (for example) to jump into a black hole\, create a closed timelike curve\, or project oneself onto the holographic boundary of the universe. \n  \nThe Yip Lecture takes place thanks to the support of Dr. Shing-Yiu Yip. \n  \n\nThe previous Yip Lecture featured Josh Tenenbaum (MIT) who spoke on How to grow a mind from a brain: From guessing and betting to thinking and talking \n 
URL:https://cmsa.fas.harvard.edu/event/yip-2025/
LOCATION:Harvard Science Center\, 1 Oxford Street\, Cambridge\, MA\, 02138
CATEGORIES:Event,Public Lecture,Special Lectures,Yip Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cmsa.fas.harvard.edu/media/Yip_2025.jpg
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