For the past decade, the Institute’s Science Initiative Group (SIG) has worked with the World Bank and other partners to strengthen science in developing nations. In this talk, Phillip Griffiths, who helped create SIG when he was Director of the Institute from 1991 to 2003, will address the context for and evolution of SIG’s programs, with emphasis on the new Carnegie–IAS Regional Initiative in Science and Education (RISE), which prepares Ph.D.-level scientists and engineers in sub-Saharan Africa through university-based research and training networks.

Although the concept of randomness is ubiquitous, it turns out to be difficult to generate a truly random sequence of events. The need for “pseudorandomness” in various parts of modern science, ranging from numerical simulation to cryptography, has challenged our limited understanding of this issue and our mathematical resources. In this talk, Professor Jean Bourgain explores some of the problems of pseudorandomness and tools to address them.

workshop-feb

Simonyi Hall Seminar Room

A five day workshop focusing on the theory of nonlinear PDEs and their applications to problems in geometry.  Topics include conformal geometry, mass transportation, and free boundary problems.

This series of three talks will give a nontechnical, high level overview of geometric complexity theory (GCT), which is an approach to the P vs. NP problem via algebraic geometry, representation theory, and the theory of a new class of quantum groups, called nonstandard quantum groups, that arise in this approach. In particular, GCT suggests that the P vs. NP problem in characteristic zero is intimately linked to the Riemann Hypothesis over finite fields. No background in algebraic geometry, representation theory or quantum groups would be
assumed.

When we look at a differential equation in a very irregular media (composite material, mixed solutions, etc.) from very close, we may see a very complicated problem. However, if we look from far away we may not see the details and the problem may look simpler. The study of this effect in partial differential equations is known as homogenization.

In math, one often studies random aspects of deterministic systems and structures. In CS, one often tries to efficiently create structures and systems with specific random-like properties. Recent work has shown many connections between these two approaches through the concept of "pseudorandomness".

Lectures by Bourgain, Impagliazzo, Sarnak and Wigderson (schedule below), will explore some of the facets of pseudorandomness, with particular emphasis on research directions and open problems that connect the different viewpoints of this concept in math and CS.

http://www.math.ias.edu/sp/gpde

The "P vs. NP" problem is a central outstanding problem of computer science and mathematics.  In this talk, Professor Wigderson attempts to describe its technical, scientific, and philosophical content, its status, and the implications of its two possible resolutions.

http://www.math.ias.edu/sp/gpde

After recalling the definition of Q-curvature and some applications, we will address the question of prescribing it through a conformal deformation of the metric. We will address some compactness issues, treated via blow-up analysis, and then study the problem, which has variational structure, using a Morse-theoretical approach.