Strings 2006 Conference

弦理论是理论物理学在过去十年中最重要的发展之一，它是目前唯一有希望成为宇宙中所有基本力的最终理论的候选者。历史上，数学和理论物理的相互作用激发了这两个学科的许多令人兴奋的发展，许多令人兴奋的例子包括爱因斯坦的广义相对论和黎曼几何，正质量猜想和对正标量曲率流形的理解，杨-米尔斯理论，塞伯格-维滕理论和四维几何和拓扑，陈-西蒙斯弦对偶性和镜像公式，马里诺-瓦法公式，量子场论中的重整化群流和佩雷尔曼在里奇流和庞加莱猜想中的突破。物理学家在物理理论的基础上提出了许多令人兴奋的、具有挑战性的数学猜想，这些猜想刺激了数学的许多革命性发展，特别是在几何、拓扑和代数几何方面。另一方面，这些猜想的数学证明为其理论提供了最具说服力的证据，几何学和拓扑学中发展起来的数学技术和理论也在理论物理学中发挥了基础作用。这是科学史上最富有成果的互动。这是一份向美国国家科学基金会申请资助美国青年数学家参加将于2006年6月19日至24日在中国北京举行的“弦2006”会议的提案。“弦”会议是弦理论领域最重要的国际会议，每年举行一次，汇集世界领先的研究人员，介绍和讨论弦理论的最新发展。在中国开展了几何学、拓扑学、数论、统计学和应用数学等方面的活动。会议前后的研讨会将重点介绍弦理论的一些数学方面。这些研讨会将成为国际专家与来自美国和世界各地的年轻数学家互动的场所，并为他们的研究所促进长期合作战略。随着中国越来越意识到基础研究的重要性并相应地增加其资助，全球科学界将在中国经历一场科学活动的激增。我们热切期待着与国际社会进行更密切的合作。

One of the most significant developments in the last decade in Theoretical Physics is string theory which is currently the only promising candidate for the final theory of all fundamental forces in the universe. In history the interactions of mathematics and theoretical physics have motivated many exciting developments in both disciplines, the many exciting examples include Einsten's general relativity and Riemannian geometry, positive mass conjecture and the understanding of manifolds with positive scalar curvature, Yang-Mills theory, Seiberg-Witten theory and four dimensional geometry and topology, Chern-Simons string duality and mirror formula, the Marino-Vafa formula, renormalization group flow in quantum field theory and Perelman's breakthrough in Ricci flow and Poincare conjecture. Physicists made many exciting challenging mathematical conjectures based on physical theories, which stimulate many revolutionary developments in mathematics, in particular in geometry, topology and algebraic geometry. On the other hand the mathematical proofs of these conjectures provide the most convincing evidences for their theories, and the mathematical techniques and theories developed in geometry and topology have also played fundamental roles in theoretical physics. These have been the most fruitful interactions in the history of sciences. This is a proposal to seek funding from the National Science Foundation to provide travel support for young mathematicians from the U.S. to attend the Strings 2006 conference to be held in Beijing, China on June 19th to 24th 2006.The ``Strings'' conferences are the premiere international meetings in the field of String Theory and are held annually to bring together the world's leading researchers to present and discuss the latest developments of string theory. There have been many activities in geometry, topology, number theory, statistics and applied mathematics in China. The workshops before and after conferences will feature some of the more mathematical aspects of String Theory. These workshops will serve as a venue for international experts to interact with young mathematicians from US and around the world and for their institutes to foster long-term collaborative strategy. As China is increasingly aware of the importance of fundamental researches and increases its funding accordingly, the global science community is going to experience a surge of scientific activities in the country. We are eagerly looking forward to closer collaboration with the international community.