Geometry and the Imagination

该项目将部分资助将于2007年6月7日至11日在普林斯顿大学举行的一次大型国际会议。会议将有来自广泛领域的杰出演讲者，代表威廉·瑟斯顿提出的主要定理的许多领域。这些领域包括三维拓扑学、微分几何、层理、接触结构、几何群论、动力学、计算机科学和教育。这次会议不仅将讨论其中许多领域的一些最新的戏剧性发展，还将向研究生和研究人员介绍各种新的数学领域。除了研究性讲座外，杰弗里·威克斯还将在晚间举办一场题为《面向所有年龄段的儿童的几何》的公开讲座。在数学领域，由于来自看似不同领域的想法被结合起来提供新的见解，出现重要突破的历史由来已久。有时，它们源于几何或物理背景的创造，在这种背景下，相似之处变得显而易见。正是这后一种过程是威廉·瑟斯顿在过去几十年中革命性工作的特征。我们期待这次会议将为今后的协同努力播下种子。

This project will partially fund a major international conference to be held at Princeton University June 7-11, 2007. The conference will feature distinguished speakers from a broad array of fields representing many of the areas that William Thurston produced major theorems. These fields include 3-dimensional topology, differential geometry, foliations, contact structures, geometric group theory, dynamics, computer science and education. This conference will not only discuss some of the recent dramatic developments in many of these fields but will introduce graduate students and researchers young and old to various new fields of mathematics. In addition to the research lectures there will be an evening public lecture by Jeffrey Weeks titled "Geometry for children of all ages". There is a long history in mathematics of important breakthroughs occurring as a result of ideas from seemingly disparate areas being combined to provide new insights. Sometimes they arise from the creation of a geometric or physical context in which the similarities become readily apparent. It is this latter process that characterizes the revolutionary work of William Thurston over the last several decades. We expect that this conference will plant seeds for future synergistic efforts.