CMSA

MATH-PHYSICS PROGRAM
2015-01-02 09:00 - 2015-12-31 17:00 (America/New_York) | CMSA 20 Garden Street Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 United States
In the past thirty years there have been deep interactions between mathematics and theoretical physics which have tremendously enhanced both subjects. The focal points of these interactions include string theory, general relativity, and quantum many-body theory.
String theory has been at the center of the ongoing effort to uncover the fundamental principles of nature and in particular to unify Einstein’s geometric theory of gravity with quantum theory. The development of this field has sparked a historically unprecedented synergy between mathematics and physics. Progress at the forefront of theoretical physics has relied crucially on very recent developments in pure mathematics. At the same time insights from physics have led to both new branches of pure mathematics as well as dramatic progress in old branches.
Several examples from the recent past exemplifying this synergy include the prediction from string theory of mirror symmetry, a highly unexpected mathematical equivalence between distinct pairs of Calabi-Yau manifolds. This fueled exciting developments in algebraic, enumerative and symplectic geometry. At the same time the realization of string theory as a phenomenologically viable physical theory depends crucially on detailed mathematical properties of these manifolds. In Einstein’s theory of general relativity the proofs of the positive energy theorem and the stability of flat spacetime were accompanied by fundamental new results in functional analysis, differential geometry and minimal surface theory. In the coming decades we expect many more important discoveries to arise from the interface of mathematics and physics. The Cheng Fund will foster these efforts.

Here is a partial list of the mathematicians who have indicated that they will attend part or all of this special program

Name
Tentative Visiting Dates

Po-Ning Chen
2/1/15-4/30/15

Hong-Jian He
3/5/15-5/5/15

Monica Guica
12/1/14-3/15/15

Amer Iqbal
1/8/15-4/8/15

Suvrat Raju
2/25/15-5/25/15

Mithat Ünsal
9/1/15-12/31/15

GAMES ON HETEROGENEOUS GRAPHS
2015-08-17 14:00 - 17:00 | Harvard Science Center, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138
A major challenge in evolutionary biology is to understand how spatial population structure affects the evolution of social behaviors such as
cooperation. This question can be investigated mathematically by studying evolutionary processes on graphs. Individuals occupy vertices and interact with neighbors according to a matrix game. Births and deaths occur stochastically according to an update rule. Previously, full mathematical results have only been obtained for graphs with strong symmetry properties. Our group is working to extend these results to certain classes of asymmetric graphs, using tools such as random walk theory and harmonic analysis.

Here is a list of the scholars participating in this program.

Name

Shing-Tung Yau

Martin Nowak

Ben Adlam

Ben Allen

Yu-Ting Chen

An Huang

Gabor Lippner

2015 Conference on Big Data
2015-08-24 08:45 - 2015-08-26 16:00 | Harvard Science Center, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138
The Center of Mathematical Sciences and Applications will be having a conference on Big Data August 24-26, 2015, in Science Center Hall B at Harvard University. This conference will feature many speakers from the Harvard Community as well as many scholars from across the globe, with talks focusing on computer science, statistics, math and physics, and economics.

Monday, August 24

Time
Speaker
Title

8:45am
Meet and Greet

9:00am
Sendhil Mullainathan
Prediction Problems in Social Science: Applications of Machine Learning to Policy and Behavioral Economics

9:45am
Mike Luca
Designing Disclosure for the Digital Age

10:30
Break

10:45
Jianqing Fan
Big Data Big Assumption: Spurious discoveries and endogeneity

11:30am
Daniel Goroff
Privacy and Reproducibility in Data Science

12:15pm
Break for Lunch

2:00pm
Ryan Adams
Exact Markov Chain Monte Carlo with Large Data

2:45pm
David Dunson
Scalable Bayes: Simple algorithms with guarantees

3:30pm
Break

3:45pm
Michael Jordan
Computational thinking, inferential thinking and Big Data

4:30pm
Joel Tropp
Applied Random Matrix Theory

5:15pm
David Woodruff
Input Sparsity and Hardness for Robust Subspace Approximation

Tuesday, August 25

Time
Speaker
Title

8:45am
Meet and Greet

9:00am
Gunnar Carlsson
Persistent homology for qualitative analysis and feature generation

9:45am
Andrea Montanari
Semidefinite Programming Relaxations for Graph and Matrix Estimation: Algorithms and Phase Transitions

10:30am
Break

10:45am
Susan Athey
Machine Learning and Causal Inference for Policy Evaluation

11:30am
Denis Nekipelov
Robust Empirical Evaluation of Large Competitive Markets

12:15pm
Break for Lunch

2:00pm
Lucy Colwell
Using evolutionary sequence variation to make inferences about protein structure and function: Modeling with Random Matrix Theory

2:45pm
Simona Cocco
Inverse Statistical Physics approaches for the modeling of protein families

3:30pm
Break

3:45pm
Remi Monasson
Inference of top components of correlation matrices with prior informations

4:30pm
Sayan Mukherjee
Random walks on simplicial complexes and higher order notions of spectral clustering

A Banquet from 7:00 – 8:30pm will follow Tuesday’s talks. This event is by invitation only.
Wednesday, August 26

Time
Speaker
Title

8:45am
Meet and Greet

9:00am
Ankur Moitra
Beyond Matrix Completion

9:45am
Florent Krzakala
Optimal compressed sensing with spatial coupling and message passing

10:30am
Break

10:45am
Piotr Indyk
Fast Algorithms for Structured Sparsity

11:30am
Guido Imbens
Exact p-values for network inference

12:15pm
Break for lunch

2:00pm
Edo Airoldi
Some fundamental ideas for causal inference on large networks

2:45pm
Ronitt Rubinfeld
Something for almost nothing: sublinear time approximation algorithms

3:30pm
Break

3:45pm
Lenka Zdeborova
Clustering of sparse networks: Phase transitions and optimal algorithms

4:30pm
Jelani Nelson
Dimensionality reductions via sparse matrices

08-31-2015 Mathematical Physics Seminar
2015-08-31 13:10

09-01-2015 Differential Geometry Seminar
2015-09-01 13:12

09-01-2015 Evolution Equation Seminar
2015-09-01 13:13

Evolution Equations Seminar, Thursdays at 9:50am
2015-09-03 09:50 - 10:50
The seminar for evolution equations, hyperbolic equations, and fluid dynamics will be held on Thursdays from 9:50am to 10:50am with time for questions afterwards in CMSA Building, 20 Garden Street, Room G10. The tentative schedule of speakers is below. Titles for the talks will be added as they are received.

Date
Name
Title

09-03-2015
Long Jin
Scattering Resonances for Convex Obstacles

09-10-2015
Chunjing Xie
Well/ill-posedness for the rotating shallow water system

09-17-2015
Xiangdi Huang
Global classical and weak Solutions to the 3D fully compressible Navier-Stokes-Fourier system

09-24-2015
Felix Finster
Causal fermion systems and the causal action principle

10-01-2015
Pin Yu
Construction of Cauchy data of vacuum Einstein field equations evolving to black holes

10-08-2015
Chunjing Xie
Steady Euler flows past a wall or through a nozzle

10-15-2015
Zhou Ping Xin
On Global Well-Posedness of The Compressible Navier-Stokes Systems with Large Oscillations

10-22-2015
Xiangdi Huang
On Nash’s problem for compressible flows

10-29-2015
Pin Yu
Shock formations for 3 dimensional wave equations

11-05-2015
No talk

11-12-2015
Zhou Ping Xin (9:30am-10:30am) Nicolai Krylov (10:30am-11:30am)
Nonlinear Asymptotic Stability of Lane-Emden Solutions for The Viscous Gaseous Star ProblemOn the existence of $bf W^{2}_{p}$ solutions for fully nonlinear elliptic equations under relaxed convexity assumptions

11-19-2015
Nicolai Krylov
To the theory of viscosity solutions for uniformly parabolic Isaacs equations

11-26-2015
Thanksgiving
No seminar

12-4-2015
John Loftin (@11:00am)
Moduli of Equivariant Minimal Surfaces in CH^2$

01-28-2016
Xiaoli Han
The symplecitic and Lagrangian mean curvature flow

02-04-2016
Pranav Pandit
Categorical Kähler Geometry

02-11-2016
Lydia Bieri
Einstein’s Equations, Energy and Gravitational Radiation

02-18-2016
Zuoqiang Shi
Low dimensional manifold model for image processing

02-25-2016
Chun Peng Wang
Smooth Transonic Flows of Meyer Type in De Laval Nozzles

03-03-2016
Piotr Chrusciel
Singularities in general relativity

03-10-2016
Feimin Huang
Isometric immersion of complete surface with slowly decaying negative Gauss curvature

03-17-2016
Spring Break
No Talk

03-24-2016
Michael Eichmair
Minimal surfaces, isoperimetry, and non-negative scalar curvature in asymptotically flat manifolds

03-31-2016
Felix Finster
Lorentzian spectral geometry and the fermionic signature operator

04-07-2016(Room 232, Science Center)
Stefano Bianchini, SISSA
Concentration of entropy dissipation for scalar conservation laws

04-14-2016
Tai-peng Tsai
Stability of periodic waves of the 1D nonlinear Schr”odinger equations

04-21-2016
Stefano Bianchini, SISSA
Quadratic interaction functional for system of conservation laws

04-28-2016
Mihalis Dafermos, Princeton
The linear stability of the Schwarzschild solution to gravitational perturbations

05-05-2016
Xu-Jia Wang
Monge-Ampere equations arising in geometric optics

05-12-2016
Stefano Bianchini

09-08-2015 Geometric Analysis Seminar
2015-09-08 13:16

09-10-2015 Evolution Equations Seminar
2015-09-10 13:23

09-14-2015 Mathematical Physics Seminar
2015-09-14 13:14

09-15-2015 Geometric Analysis Seminar
2015-09-15 13:26

09-16-2015 Random Matrix & Probability Theory Seminar
2015-09-16 13:27

09-17-2015 Evolution Equations Seminar
2015-09-17 13:39

09-21-2015 Mathematical Physics Seminar
2015-09-21 13:54

09-22-2015 Geometric Analysis Seminar
2015-09-22 13:52

9/22 Science, Technology, and Innovation in China
2015-09-22 16:00 - 17:00

09-23-2015 Random Matrix & Probability Theory Seminar
2015-09-23 13:29

09-24-2015 Evolution Equations Seminar
2015-09-24 14:03

09-28-2015 Special Random Matrix & Probability Theory Seminar
2015-09-28 13:05

09-28-2015 Mathematical Physics Seminar
2015-09-28 13:31

09-29-2015 Geometric Analysis Seminar
2015-09-29 14:15

09-30-2015 Random Matrix & Probability Theory Seminar
2015-09-30 13:53

10-01-2015 Evolution Equations Seminar
2015-10-01 13:25

10-05-2015 Mathematical Physics Seminar
2015-10-05 14:16

10-06-2015 Geometric Analysis Seminar
2015-10-06 13:17

10-07-2015 Random Matrix & Probability Theory Seminar
2015-10-07 14:19

Geometric Analysis Seminar, Tuesdays at 9:50am
2015-10-08 09:50 - 2016-04-26 22:50
The seminar on geometric analysis will be held on Tuesdays from 9:50am to 10:50am with time for questions afterwards in CMSA Building, 20 Garden Street, Room G10. The tentative schedule can be found below. Titles will be added as they are provided.

Day
Name
Title

09-08-2015
Binglong Chen
On the geometry of complete positively curved Kahler manifolds

09-15-2015
Hongwei Xu
Mean Curvature Flow and Sphere Theorem

09-22-2015
Teng Fei
Some new solutions to the Strominger system

09-29-2015
Xuqian Fan
The Steklov eigenvalues on annuli

10-06-2015
Binglong Chen
Ricci flow and the moduli spaces of positive isotropic curvature metrics on four-manifolds

10-13-2015
Pengfei Guan
Isometric embeddings of $(S^2,g)$ to general warped product space $(N^3,bar g)$.

10-20-2015
Ovidiu Savin
Smoothness of the eigenfunction for the Monge-Ampere equation

10-27-2015
Tom Ilmanen
Flow of curves by curvature in R^n

11-03-2015
Tom Hou (Caltech)
Existence and stability of self-similar singularities for a 1D model of the 3D axisymmetric Euler equations

11-10-2015
Jerome Darbon (9:30am-10:30am) Adam Jacob (10:30am-11:30am)
On Convex Finite-Dimensional Variational Methods in Imaging Sciences and Hamilton-Jacobi Equations(1,1) forms with specified Lagrangian phase

11-17-2015
Ovidiu Savin
Examples of singular minimizers in the calculus of variations

11-24-2015
Hongwei Xu
Mean curvature flow meets Ricci flow: Convergence and sphere theorems of sub manifolds arising from Yau rigidity theory

12-01-2015
Tom Ilmanen

01-26-2016
Mao Sheng
Uniformization of p-adic curves

02-02-2016
Yi Zhang
Hodge Bundles on Smooth Compactifications of Siegel Varieties

02-09-2016
Valentino Tosatti
Non-Kahler Calabi-Yau manifolds

02-16-2016
Camillo De Lellis
Approaching Plateau’s problem with minimizing sequences of sets

02-23-2016
Junbin Li
Construction of black hole formation spacetimes

03-01-2016
Ben Weinkove
Monge-Ampere equations and metrics on complex manifolds

03-08-2016
Albert Chau
Survey on Kahler Ricci flow on non-negatively curved non-compact manifolds

03-15-2016
Spring Break

03-22-2016
Richard Schoen (Standford)
The geometry of eigenvalue extremal problems

03-29-2016
Piotr Chrusciel
Mass of characteristic surfaces

04-05-2016 (Room 232, Science Center)
Niky Kamran, McGill University
Non-uniqueness results for the anisotropic Calderon problem with data measured on disjoint sets

04-12-2016
Connor Mooney, UT Austin
Finite time blowup for parabolic systems in the plane

04-19-2016 (Room 232, Science Center)
Xu-Jia Wang
Boundary behaviour of solutions to singular elliptic equations

04-26-2016
Andre Neves
A path to Yau’s conjecture

10-08-2015 Evolution Equations Seminar
2015-10-08 13:18

10-13-2015 Geometric Analysis Seminar
2015-10-13 13:22

10-14-2015 Random Matrix & Probability Theory Seminar
2015-10-14 14:21
