Geometry and the Imagination

该项目将为2007年6月7日至11日在普林斯顿大学举行的一次重要国际会议提供部分资金。 这次会议将具有杰出的发言者从广泛的领域代表了许多领域，威廉瑟斯顿生产的主要定理。 这些领域包括三维拓扑学、微分几何、叶理、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一些最近在许多这些领域的戏剧性发展，但将介绍研究生和研究人员年轻和年老的数学的各种新领域。除了研究讲座将有一个晚上的公开讲座杰弗里周题为“几何为所有年龄段的儿童”。在数学中，有一段很长的历史，重要的突破是由于来自看似不同领域的想法被结合起来提供新的见解。有时，它们来自于几何或物理背景的创造，在这种背景下，相似性变得显而易见。正是这后一个过程的特点，革命工作的威廉瑟斯顿在过去几十年。 我们期望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.