The unity of mathematics: A conference in honour of Sir Michael Atiyah
OOEW02
21 September 2021 to 23 September 2021
Workshop theme
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Event hashtag: #NewtonAtiyah2021
Sir Michael Atiyah (1929-2019) was the dominant figure in UK mathematics for many decades. Amongst his many distinguished positions, he was the founding Director of the Isaac Newton Institute (1990-96). He was also President of the London Mathematical Society (1974 -76). In his Presidential Address “The Unity of Mathematics”, delivered on November 19th, 1976, he remarked: “The aspect of mathematics which fascinates me most is the rich interaction between its different branches, the unexpected links, the surprises…”. Those who knew him will know that this fascination was an ongoing theme throughout his life.
The London Mathematical Society spearheaded the idea of a meeting of the same title to celebrate Sir Michael’s immense contributions to mathematics and the mathematical life of this country. It is being organised jointly with the Isaac Newton Institute and has been made possible owing to the generosity of the LMS and the INI, in partnership with the Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research, the Clay Mathematical Institute and the Mathematical Institute, Oxford.
The conference will consist of a selection of talks which we trust Sir Michael would have found interesting and which reflect the interactions which he so much appreciated. The speakers cover a broad range of mathematical generations and topics, ranging from number theory to theoretical physics, and include representatives from Oxford, Cambridge, Bonn, Princeton and Edinburgh – places which played a fundamental role at various stages of Sir Michael’s long mathematical life. The presentations should be accessible to a broad audience.
Due to current COVID restrictions in the UK, it is not possible to hold a fully face-to-face meeting. It is the intention of the Organisers that the event will take place as a hybrid event, with both face-to-face and online participants. However, please note that if there are any further changes to the COVID restrictions in the UK in September, the event may have to be run as a fully virtual meeting. The situation will be reviewed regularly.
All speakers will be online with the exception of Nigel Hitchin, Minhyong Kim, Oscar Randal-Williams, Bernd Schroers and Ulrike Tillmann.
The following organisers and members of the Scientific Committee will be attending the conference online only: Simon Donaldson, Lisa Jeffrey, José Figueroa-O’Farrill, Laura Schaposnik and Henry Wilton. In addition to the above list, over 150 further people have registered to participate in the Conference online.
Registration is closed for physical participants. Registration is open for virtual participants only.
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Speakers:
- Robbert Dijkgraaf (IAS) - 'Atiyah’s Dream: The Geometry of Quantum Physics'
- Nigel Higson (Penn State) - 'Index theory and noncommutative geometry'
- Nina Holden (ETH) - 'Liouville quantum gravity in probability theory'
- Minhyong Kim (Warwick/Edinburgh/Heriot Watt) - 'Index theory and gauge theory in arithmetic geometry'
- Rahul Pandharipande (ETH) - 'Torus actions on moduli spaces after Atiyah and Bott'
- Lisa Piccirillo (MIT) - 'Knot concordance and 4-manifolds'
- Oscar Randal-Williams (Cambridge) - 'Spaces of positive scalar curvature metrics'
- Peter Sarnak (Princeton) -0' The algebraic and transcendental parts of the spectra of arithmetic manifolds'
- Bernd Schroers (Heriot Watt) - 'Michael Atiyah and Physics: the Edinburgh Years'
- Nick Sheridan (Edinburgh) - 'Quantum cohomology as a deformation of symplectic cohomology'
- Catharina Stroppel (Bonn)
- Maryna Viazovska (EPFL)
- Edward Witten (IAS) - 'Duality, the Langlands Correspondence, and the Influence of Michael Atiyah'
Scientific Committee:
- Nigel Hitchin (Oxford, Chair)
- Simon Donaldson (Stony Brook)
- Dai Evans (Cardiff and LMS Council)
- Lisa Jeffrey (Toronto)
- Jon Keating (Oxford and LMS President)
- Ivan Smith (Cambridge)
- Richard Thomas (Imperial)
Photo Gallery
The Organisers would like to thank the following sponsors for their generous support of the event:
Timetable
| Tuesday 21st September 2021 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 12:00 to 13:00 | No Room Required | ||
| 13:00 to 13:30 |
Nigel Hitchin University of Oxford |
Room 1 |  |
| 13:30 to 14:30 |
Rahul Pandharipande ETH Zürich |
Room 1 | |
| 14:30 to 15:30 |
Minyong Kim University of Warwick; University of Edinburgh |
Room 1 | |
| 15:30 to 16:00 | No Room Required | ||
| 16:00 to 17:00 |
Nina Holden ETH Zürich |
Room 1 | |
| 17:00 to 18:00 |
Robbert Dijkgraaf Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton |
Room 1 | |
| 18:00 to 18:30 | No Room Required | ||
| 18:30 to 18:55 |
Bernd Schroers Heriot-Watt University |
Room 1 | |
| Wednesday 22nd September 2021 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 10:30 to 11:30 | No Room Required | ||
| 12:00 to 13:00 | No Room Required | ||
| 13:00 to 14:00 |
Nick Sheridan University of Edinburgh |
Room 1 | |
| 14:00 to 15:00 |
Lisa Piccirillo Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
Room 1 | |
| 15:00 to 15:30 | No Room Required | ||
| 15:30 to 16:30 |
Peter Sarnak Princeton University |
Room 1 | |
| 16:30 to 17:30 |
Nigel Higson Penn State |
Room 1 | |
| 19:30 to 22:00 | No Room Required | ||
| Thursday 23rd September 2021 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 12:00 to 13:00 | No Room Required | ||
| 13:00 to 14:00 |
Oscar Randal-Williams University of Cambridge |
Room 1 | |
| 14:00 to 15:00 |
Maryna Viazovska EPFL - Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne |
Room 1 | |
| 15:00 to 15:30 | No Room Required | ||
| 15:30 to 16:30 |
Catharina Stroppel Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn |
Room 1 | |
| 16:30 to 17:30 |
Edward Witten Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton |
Room 1 | |
| 17:30 to 18:00 |
Ulrike Tillmann University of Oxford |
Room 1 | |
Organisers
- José Figueroa-O'Farrill University of Edinburgh
- Laura Schaposnik Massolo University of Oxford
- Caroline Series University of Warwick; London Mathematical Society
- Ivan Smith
- Paul Sutcliffe Durham University
- Henry Wilton University of Cambridge
Speakers
- Robbert Dijkgraaf Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
- Nigel Higson Penn State
- Nigel Hitchin University of Oxford
- Nina Holden Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Minyong Kim University of Oxford
- Rahul Pandharipande ETH Zürich
- Lisa Piccirillo Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Oscar Randal-Williams University of Cambridge
- Peter Sarnak Princeton University
- Bernd Schroers Heriot-Watt University
- Nick Sheridan University of Edinburgh
- Catharina Stroppel Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
- Ulrike Tillmann University of Oxford
- Maryna Viazovska EPFL - Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
- Edward Witten Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
Participants
- Lambert A'Campo University College London
- David Abrahams Isaac Newton Institute; University of Manchester
- Karin Baur University of Leeds; Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz
- Nicholas Bingham Imperial College London
- Ken A Brown University of Glasgow
- Andrew Bruce Université du Luxembourg
- Matthew Buck Lancaster University
- Davide Castelvecchi Nature Journal
- Cho-Ho Chu Queen Mary University of London
- Robert Curtis University of Birmingham
- Antoine Dahlqvist University of Sussex
- Ilaria Di Dedda King's College London
- Robbert Dijkgraaf Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
- James Dodd University of Oxford
- Gilles Engelbert University of Oxford
- David Evans Cardiff University
- Steven Flynn University of Bath
- Gary Gibbons University of Cambridge
- Francisco Gonzales Montoya University of Bristol
- Iain Gordon University of Edinburgh
- John Greenlees University of Sheffield
- Geoffrey Grimmett University of Cambridge
- Jan Gutowski University of Surrey
- Matthew Habermann University College London
- Xinyu He University of Warwick
- Simon Heuveline University of Cambridge
- Susan Hezlet James Clerk Maxwell Foundation
- Nigel Higson Penn State
- Nigel Hitchin University of Oxford
- Catherine Hobbs University of the West of England
- Nina Holden Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Onriban Islam University of Leeds
- Adam Jones University of Manchester
- Jon Keating University of Bristol
- Minyong Kim University of Oxford
- Lukas Kofler University of Cambridge
- Alexei Kovalev University of Cambridge
- Niall MacKay University of York
- Rajarshi Maiti Queen's University Belfast
- Nicholas Manton University of Cambridge
- Lionel Mason University of Oxford
- Hugh Morton University of Liverpool
- Ashvni Narayanan University College London; King's College London
- Frank Neumann University of Leicester
- James Norris
- Rahul Pandharipande ETH Zürich
- Ulrich Pennig Cardiff University
- Harry Petyt University of Bristol
- Lisa Piccirillo Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Alan Prince Heriot-Watt University
- Patrick Ramsey Lancaster University
- Oscar Randal-Williams University of Cambridge
- Bolys Sabitbek Queen Mary University of London
- Peter Sarnak Princeton University
- Peter Scharbach University of Oxford
- Marco Schlichting University of Warwick
- Bernd Schroers Heriot-Watt University
- Sibylle Schroll University of Cologne
- Caroline Series University of Warwick; London Mathematical Society
- Thomas Sharpe King's College London
- Nick Sheridan University of Edinburgh
- Michael Singer University College London
- Ivan Smith
- Ivan Solonenko King's College London
- Catharina Stroppel Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
- Paul Sutcliffe Durham University
- Filippos Sytilidis University of Oxford
- Balazs Szendroi University of Oxford
- Markus Szymik Norwegian University of Science and Technology
- James Taylor University of Oxford
- Richard Thomas Imperial College London
- Ulrike Tillmann University of Oxford
- Hannah Tillmann-Morris Imperial College London
- James Timmins University of Oxford
- Olga Tveretina University of Hertfordshire
- Maryna Viazovska EPFL - Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
- Laura Wakelin Imperial College London
- Caroline Wallace London Mathematical Society
- Hanneke Wiersema King's College London
- Finn Wiersig University of Oxford
- Edward Witten Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
- Richard Woolfson
- Guangyu Xu Durham University
- Carlos Zapata-Carratala None / Other
- Xin Zhao University of Oxford
- Filip Zivanovic University of Oxford
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