In the 2020-2021 academic year, the CMSA will be hosting a lecture series on Strongly Correlated Materials and High Tc Superconductor. All talks will take place from 10:30-12:00pm ET virtually on Zoom. Cuprate high-temperature superconductors are a classic quantum material system to demonstrate the beauty of “Emergence and Entanglement” in the quantum phases of matter. Merely by […]
Maxim Kontsevich (IHÉS) Title: On the History of quantum cohomology and homological mirror symmetry Abstract: About 30 years ago, string theorists made remarkable discoveries of hidden structures in algebraic geometry. First, the usual cup-product on the cohomology of a complex projective variety admits a canonical multi-parameter deformation to so-called quantum product, satisfying a nice system of differential […]
Beginning immediately, until at least December 31, all seminars will take place virtually, through Zoom. In the 2020-2021 AY, the Random Matrix and Probability Theory Seminar will take place on select Wednesdays from 2:00 – 3:00pm virtually. This seminar is organized by Christian Brennecke (brennecke@math.harvard.edu ). To learn how to attend this seminar, please fill out this form. […]
In 2021, the CMSA hosted a lecture series on the literature of the mathematical sciences. This series highlights significant accomplishments in the intersection between mathematics and the sciences. Speakers include Edward Witten, Lydia Bieri, Simon Donaldson, Michael Freedman, Dan Freed, and many more. Videos of these talks can be found in this Youtube playlist. https://youtu.be/vb_JEhUW9t4 […]
Edward Witten (IAS) Title: Isadore Singer’s Work on Analytic Torsion Abstract: I will review two famous papers of Ray and Singer on analytic torsion written approximately half a century ago. Then I will sketch the influence of analytic torsion in a variety of areas of physics including anomalies, topological field theory, and string theory. This talk is […]
https://youtu.be/79ymkGQW3b4 Speaker: David McAllester - Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago Title: Type theory from the perspective of artificial intelligence Abstract: This talk will discuss dependent type theory from the perspective of artificial intelligence and cognitive science. From an artificial intelligence perspective it will be argued that type theory is central to defining the "game" of mathematics […]
Peter Shor (MIT) Title: Quantum error correcting codes and fault tolerance Abstract: We will go over the fundamentals of quantum error correction and fault tolerance and survey some of the recent developments in the field. Talk chair: Zhengwei Liu Video
https://youtu.be/VhseP2V3NXg Speaker: Miles Cranmer - Princeton University Title: A Bayesian neural network predicts the dissolution of compact planetary systems Abstract: Despite over three hundred years of effort, no solutions exist for predicting when a general planetary configuration will become unstable. I will discuss our deep learning architecture (arxiv:2101.04117) which pushes forward this problem for compact systems. […]
Yi MaPhoto Copyright Noah Berger / 2019 Yi Ma (University of California, Berkeley) Title: Deep Networks from First Principles Abstract: In this talk, we offer an entirely “white box’’ interpretation of deep (convolution) networks from the perspective of data compression (and group invariance). In particular, we show how modern deep layered architectures, linear (convolution) operators and […]
Dan Freed (The University of Texas at Austin) Title: The Atiyah-Singer Index Theorem Abstract: The story of the index theorem ties together the Gang of Four—Atiyah, Bott, Hirzebruch, and Singer—and lies at the intersection of analysis, geometry, and topology. In the first part of the talk I will recount high points in the early developments. Then I […]
Speaker: Michael Shulman - Dept. of Mathematics, University of San Diego Title: Homotopy type theory and the quest for extensionality Abstract: Over the past decades, dependent type theory has proven to be a powerful framework for verified software and formalized mathematics. However, its treatment of equality has always been somewhat uncomfortable. Recently, homotopy type theory has […]
Amit Sahai (UCLA) Title: Indistinguishability Obfuscation: How to Hide Secrets within Software Abstract: At least since the initial public proposal of public-key cryptography based on computational hardness conjectures (Diffie and Hellman, 1976), cryptographers have contemplated the possibility of a “one-way compiler” that translates computer programs into “incomprehensible” but equivalent forms. And yet, the search for such a “one-way […]
Frances Kirwan (University of Oxford) Title: Moment maps and the Yang-Mills functional Abstract: In the early 1980s Michael Atiyah and Raoul Bott wrote two influential papers, ‘The Yang-Mills equations over Riemann surfaces’ and ‘The moment map and equivariant cohomology’, bringing together ideas ranging from algebraic and symplectic geometry through algebraic topology to mathematical physics and number theory. […]