Description
Book SynopsisThis book constitutes the second volume of interviews with prominent mathematicians and mathematical scientists invited to the Institute for Mathematical Sciences, National University of Singapore. First published in the Institute's newsletter Imprints during the period 2010-2019, they offer glimpses of an esoteric universe as viewed and experienced by some of the world's most active and creative practitioners of the craft of mathematics.The topics covered in this volume are wide-ranging, running from pure mathematics (logic, number theory, algebraic geometry) to applied mathematics (mathematical modeling, fluid dynamics) through probability and statistics, mathematical physics, theoretical computer science and financial mathematics. This eclectic mix of the abstract and the concrete should interest those who are enthralled by the mystique and power of mathematics, whether they are students, researchers or the non-specialists.By briefly tracing the paths traveled by the pioneers of different national backgrounds, the interviews attempt to put a cultural face to an intellectual endeavor that is often perceived as dry and austere by the uninitiated. They should also interest those who are intrigued by the influence of the environment on the creative spirit, and, in particular, those who are interested in the psychology and history of ideas.
Table of ContentsHuzihiro Araki: Mathematics and Physics, A Tale of Two Cultures; John Ball: Nonlinear Elasticity, Microstructures and Mathematics; Andrew Barbour: Cambridge and Zürich, Probability and Stochastik; Joseph Bernstein: Beauty and Reality in Mathematics — D-Modules, Groups, Sheaves; Ingrid Daubechies: Wavelets at your Service; Rodney Graham Downey: The Road to Parameterized Complexity and Beyond; Richard Timothy Durrett: Mathematical Modeling in Ecology, Genetics and Cancer Research; Paul Embrechts: Mathematics, Insurance, Finance; Steven Neil Evans: Probabilist for All Seasons; Jianqing Fan: Methodology and Insight in Statistics, Financial Crisis, High Dimensional Challenges; Ben Joseph Green: Addictive Combinatorics, A Prime Obsession; Benedict Gross: Elliptic Curves, Millennium Problem; Peter Gavin Hall: From Probability to Statistics — Martingales. Percolation, Bootstrap and Beyond; Alexander Semenovich Holevo: Quantum Information, Quantum Computation; Iain Murray Johnstone: Dealing with High-dimensional Data — Wavelets, PCA, RMT; Tze Leung Lai: From Accidental Statistician to Interdisciplinary Statistician Who Combines Theory with Practice; Tai-Ping Liu: Boltzmann Equation, Partial Differential Equations and the Computer; Menachem Magidor: Mathematical Logic, Common-Sense Logic; Olivier Pironneau: Control Theory, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Mathematical Finance; Ralph Tyrrell Rockafellar: Convexity, Optimization, Risk; Caroline Mary Series: Pearl of Hyperbolic Manifolds; Jean-Pierre Serre: Seventy Years of Mathematics; Lawrence Alan Shepp: From Putnam to CAT Scan; Richard Arnold Shore: Logic, Mathematics, Computer Science; Yum-Tong Siu: Hongkong–Princeton–Harvard, a Path of Several Complex Variables; Gang Tian: From Kähler Geometry to Quantum Cohomology; Emmanuel Ullmo: Diophantine Geometry — From Ergodic Theory to O-Minimal Theory; Moshe Ya'akov Vardi: Sapere Aude! (Dare to Know!); Marie-France Vignéras: From Lycée to Langlands, L'Express Femme 100; Cédric Villani: Ambassador of Mathematics Extraordinaire; Wendelin Werner: Probabilistic Tour de Force; Zhouping Xin: Courant in Hong Kong — Shock Waves, Nonlinear Waves; Shing-Tung Yau: Manifolds, Cosmos, China; Shou-Wu Zhang: Number Theory and Arithmetic Algebraic Geometry; James V Zidek: Bridges Bayesians Build;
