Seminars Sorted by Series

We will recall the central limit theorem for random numbers, and then discuss the general principle of universality and what it might mean specifically in an analog of the central limit theorem for random groups.

The multivariate Tutte polynomial, known to physicists as the Potts-model partition function, can be defined for any finite graph. The function has a hidden convexity property that implies several nontrivial results concerning the combinatorics of...

An atom is made of a positively charged nucleus and negatively charged electrons, interacting with each other via Coulomb forces. In this talk, I will review what is known, from a mathematical perspective, about this paradigmatic model, with a...

The isoperimetric inequality says that balls have the smallest perimeter among all sets of a fixed volume in Euclidean space. We give an elegant analytic proof of this fact.

The uncertainty principle says that a function and its Fourier transform can not be well-localized simultaneously. We will first discuss a version of this statement for a collection of functions forming a basis for $L^2$ space. Then we will connect...

In 1984, Robert Lazarsfeld solved an old conjecture of Remmert and Van de Ven, which stated that there are no non-trivial complex manifolds that can be covered by a projective space. His result was a consequence of Shigefumi Mori's breakthrough...

In 2004 Jean Bourgain proved, with Netz Katz and Terry Tao, the "sum-product theorem in finite fields". He referred to this result (and proof technique) as a "goose which lays golden eggs". Indeed, in subsequent years, he has published a couple of...

Understanding the mechanics of crumpling, i.e. of isotropically compressing thin elastic sheets, is a challenging problem of theoretical and applied interest. We will present an interesting conjecture on the order of magnitude of the elastic energy...

The PCP Theorem states that any mathematical proof can be encoded in a way that allows verifying it probabilistically while reading only a small number of bits of the (new) proof. This result has several applications in Theoretical Computer Science...

Given a domain, the harmonic measure is a measure that relates any boundary function to its harmonic extension; it is also the hitting probability of the boundary for a Brownian motion moving inside the domain. We will talk about the relationship...

The Ax–Grothendieck theorem from the 1960s says that an injective polynomial $f \colon \mathbb{C}^n \rightarrow \mathbb{C}^n$ is also surjective. It is one of the first examples of the powerful technique in algebraic geometry of using finite fields...

Solutions to some differential equations are related to geometric structures on the underlying manifold. For instance certain hypergeometric equations are related to the uniformization of Riemann surfaces. I will start by recalling some classical...

The study of the planar-circular-restricted 3-body problem led to Poincaré's "last geometric theorem", nowadays known as the Poincaré-Birkhoff theorem. It is a fixed point theorem for certain area-preserving annulus homeomorphisms. Birkhoff's proof...

The idea of corrugation goes back to Whitney, who proved that homotopy classes of immersed curves in the plane are classified by their rotation number. Generalizing this result, Smale and Hirsch proved that the space of immersions of a manifold X...

This is a light survey of the origins of contact topology and its applications to dynamics. We will use anecdotes and images to illustrate ideas.

I will construct a family of curves in the square that illustrates the interplay between hyperbolic dynamics and pathology.

An unlikely couple devised one of the first spread spectrum communication systems. Today these systems use sophisticated mathematics and are ubiquitous. This is a verbatim repeat (by popular demand) of a talk I gave about 6 years ago.

When designing the first computer built at IAS, von Neumann rejected floating-point arithmetic as neither necessary nor convenient. In 1997 William Kahan at Berkeley, who designed the famously accurate algorithms on Hewlett-Packard calculators, said...

The Ax-Grothendieck theorem from the 1960s says that an injective polynomial $f : \mathbb C^n \to \mathbb C^n$ is also surjective. It is one of the first examples of the powerful technique in algebraic geometry of using finite fields to prove...

Percolation is a simple model for the movement of liquid through a porous medium or the spread of a forest fire or an epidemic: the edges of some graph are declared open or closed depending on independent coin tosses, and then connected open...

I will describe the construction and applications of Khovanov homology, a combinatorially defined invariant for knots that categorifies the Jones polynomial.

Optimal transport has been used to have new insights on a variety of mathematical questions, ranging from functional inequalities to economics. We will discuss some of the unexpected uses of optimal transport, as a simple proof of the isoperimetric...

Given $N$ distinct points on the plane, what's the minimal number, $g(N)$, of distinct distances between them? Erdős conjectured in 1946 that $g(N)\geq O(N/(log N)^{1/2})$. In 2010, Guth and Katz showed that $g(N)\geq O(N/log N)$ using the...

A main theme in extremal combinatorics is about asking when the random construction is close to optimal. A famous conjecture of Erd\H{o}s-Simonovits and Sidorenko states that if $H$ is a bipartite graph, then the random graph with edge density $p$...

To understand human memory one needs to understand both the ability to acquire vast amounts of information and at the same time the limited ability to recall random material. We have recently proposed a model for recalling random unstructured...

In the 1960's, Quillen found a remarkable relationship between a certain class of cohomology theories and the theory of formal groups. This discovery has had a profound impact on the development of stable homotopy theory. In this talk, I'll give a...

In this talk, we will discuss some of the recent advances in high-dimensional robust statistics. In particular, we will focus on designing faster and simpler robust algorithms for fundamental statistical and machine learning problems.

I will talk about an approach to proving exponential mixing for some kinetic, non-diffusive stochastic processes, that have recently become popular in computational statistics community.

I will explain the source of Grothendieck philosophy of motives, and tell of applications.

The goal of the talk is to explain the statement and proof of a beautiful result due to Margulis (1967) later extended by Plante and Thurston (1972) that imposes restrictions on the growth of the fundamental group of 3-manifolds that support Anosov...

This is a shameless repeat of a Math Conversations I gave about four years ago, and maybe four years before that as well, explaining 2-adic shift registers.

I will introduce a math problem from deep learning regarding the regularization effect of gradient flow dynamics for underdetermined problems.

I’ll introduce the incompressible Euler equations and talk about the solution’s behavior when the vorticity has odd symmetry.

I will survey what is known about the rationality of algebraic varieties, including recent progress and open questions. There will be a surprising connection to whiskey.

Gauge theory studies partial differential equations with a large group of local symmetries, and it is the geometric language to formulate many fundamental physical phenomena. Starting in the 1980s, mathematicians began to unravel surprising...

In the absence of a vaccine, isolation is about the only available means to control an epidemic. I would like to share with everyone some things I learned from a project I worked on a few years ago studying the consequences of delays and...

Through interactions with engineers and computer scientists over the years, including some current visitors at IAS, I have become pretty sold on the idea that machine learning is rich in questions which are interesting to pure mathematicians and...

In 1976 Dennis Sullivan gave an example of a smooth vector-field on a compact (Riemannian) 5-dimensional manifold in which all the orbits are closed but for which there is no upper bound to the length of a closed orbit. (At first this doesn't even...

In the course of this collaboration, both sides learned about the other field; to my surprise, the biologists learned to "speak" some mathematics. Also, when they saw how we approached answering their initial questions, the questions changed. And...

Discrepancy theory tells us that it is possible to partition vectors into sets so that each set looks surprisingly similar to every other. By "surprisingly similar" we mean much more similar than a random partition. Randomized Controlled Trials are...

In the 60s and 70s, there was a flurry of activity concerning the question of whether or not various subgroups of homeomorphism groups of manifolds are simple, with beautiful contributions by Fathi, Kirby, Mather, Thurston, and many others. A...

In 1978, Charles Conley classified all continuous dynamical systems. His theorem, dubbed the "fundamental theorem of dynamical systems" states that the orbits of any continuous map on a compact metric space fall into two classes: gradient-like and...

A great achievement of physics in the second half of the twentieth century has been the prediction of conformal symmetry of the scaling limit of critical statistical physics systems. Around the turn of the millenium, the mathematical understanding...

A growing number of mathematicians are having fun explaining mathematics to computers using proof assistant softwares. This process is called formalization. For instance, together with Kevin Buzzard and Johan Commelin, I recently formalized enough...

In this talk I will first recall three classical theorems in the theory of finite dimensional Hamiltonian systems, then I will use the periodic nonlinear Schrodinger equation as an example of an infinite dimensional Hamiltonian system and I will...

There is a rich interplay between the fields of knot theory and 3- and 4-manifold topology. In this talk, I will describe a weak notion of equivalence for knots called concordance, and highlight some historical and recent connections between knot...

The reversibility paradox is the objection that it should not be possible to deduce an irreversible process from time-symmetric dynamics. A first result reconciling the fundamental microscopic physical processes (with time reversal symmetry) and...

We review a "Weyl law" in embedded contact homology, relating periods of orbits of the Reeb vector field on a contact three-manifold to volume. (This was also mentioned in the talk by Dan Cristofaro-Gardiner.) We explain a clever argument by Kei...