In a previous posting I explained a bit about the Langlands program, and the role of Fields medalist Ngô Bảo Châu in finishing the proof of a special case of the general functoriality conjecture.  The … Weiterlesen

In intelligenten Robotern und Geräten mit künstlicher Intelligenz steckt unheimlich großes Potential, um das Leben der Menschen zum Positiven zu verändern. Und das beste ist: Das ist gar keine Zukunftsmusik. Es passiert jetzt gerade. Knapp … Weiterlesen

On the second day of the Heidelberg Laureate Forum, Fred Brooks took the stage to talk virtual environments. We were lucky enough to interview him last year, when we focused mostly on software development. Because … Weiterlesen

Mathematics is lonely work. Or so the romantic stereotype has it: the lone genius in an empty library. The sage on the mountaintop. Andrew Wiles in the attic. But most mathematical work is profoundly collaborative. I … Weiterlesen

The Langlands program is the name generally given to a highly influential vision unifying two different areas of mathematics, referring to a set of ideas first brought to light by Robert Langlands at the end … Weiterlesen

Early in his talk, computer scientist John Hopcroft noted a funny fact about clustering algorithms: they work better on synthetic data than real data. But this is more than an odd tidbit about software. It’s … Weiterlesen

Wolfgang Victor Yarlott, a Young Researcher at the Heidelberg Laureate Forum, studies narrative through the lens of computer science. He completed his undergraduate studies at MIT and recently began a PhD program at Florida International … Weiterlesen

Ich verstehe bei weitem nicht alles, was in den Vorträgen beim Heidelberg Laureate Forum erzählt wird, im Detail, und ich gehe davon aus, dass es den allermeisten Teilnehmern ähnlich geht. Aber auch Vorträge, die und … Weiterlesen

At most scientific conferences, you find a cross-section of ages: elder statesmen, rising stars, mid-career workhorses, maturing postdocs, and fresh-faced PhD candidates. The HLF brings together the two extremes: the most legendary of the legends, … Weiterlesen

Raj Reddy likes to imagine a world where consumers can buy any product from anywhere, and computers are always listening. He’s not describing a dystopia where consumerist computers take over the world. Instead, Reddy, an … Weiterlesen

Ich hatte Sir Michael Atiyah (auf dem HLF-Blog schon hier mit „21 essential quotes“ verewigt) eigentlich eine eher technische Frage zur Vereinfachung des Noether-Theorems stellen wollen (ein Problem, das ich seit langem für die Königsdisziplin … Weiterlesen

Fields medalist Gerd Faltings is here in Heidelberg for the HLF, and while he’s not giving a talk he will be participating in other activities such as visits by the laureates to local schools. He’s … Weiterlesen

The joke among bloggers over breakfast: What award hasn’t Atiyah won? A Fields Medalist and Abel Prize recipient, he is a living legend: his index theorem (developed with Singer) revolutionized both mathematics and quantum physics. … Weiterlesen

Meine ersten Nachforschungen dazu, wie die hier anwesenden jungen Forscher zum diesjährigen HLF und, vorher, zur Mathematik bzw. zur Informatik gekommen sind, hatte ja bereits (nicht allzu überraschend) einige Gemeinsamkeiten offenbart – inspirierende Lehrer ebenso … Weiterlesen

My first quest for the paths that brought young researchers to the Heidelberg Laureate Forum already showed certain common factors – inspiring teachers in high school and/or university, inspiring books among them – but my … Weiterlesen

Bei mir hat es fast ein Jahr lang gedauert, bis ich vom Sie zum Du kam und auch so gefühlt habe. Der Betreuer meiner Diplomarbeit hatte mir kurz nachdem ich anfing in seinem Labor zu … Weiterlesen

The Heidelberg Laureate Forum is very much about mentoring, regardless of whether we explicitly call it that. Young researchers are eager to get insight and advice from the laureates as well as each other. As … Weiterlesen

It’s always nice to be right—but sometimes, says Professor Günter Ziegler, it’s more interesting to be wrong. “Math starts with a mistake,” says Ziegler, who researches discrete geometry at the Free University of Berlin, and … Weiterlesen

When Jan Poleszczuk was starting college, he wanted to study computer science but his father talked him out of it. He suggested math instead: „if you are going to know math then you can switch … Weiterlesen

How did people get here? In the sense of: How did the young researchers (and others) attending the Heidelberg Laureate Forum become interested in mathematics (and computer science)? That will be one of my guiding … Weiterlesen