Conference: Contemporary Combinatorics 2007

这次会议的目的是汇集一群杰出的数学家，他们与最广泛意义上的组合学有松散的联系。这次会议将给来自美国中南部的数学家提供一个机会，不仅能从讲座中受益，还能从与演讲者的个人接触中受益。会议的主要发言人是当今最杰出的数学家之一，纽约Courant研究所的Peter Lax，他是1986年国家科学奖章、1987年沃尔夫奖和2005年阿贝尔奖的获得者。准确地说，他被称为当今最多才多艺的数学家。他从纯粹数学开始，但他最大的贡献是对偏微分方程的理论和应用，以及对其解的计算。特别是，他构造了非线性双曲型系统的显式解，并识别了一些表现特别好的系统。Lax也是一位出色的阐释者，几本成功书籍的作者，也是一个非常平易近人的人。会上还有其他几位激动人心的演讲者；他们之所以被选中，不仅是因为他们是优秀的数学家，还因为他们是出色的阐释者和非常平易近人的人。他们包括俄亥俄州立大学的维塔利·伯格尔森（Vitaly Bergelson），他对遍历理论做出了重大贡献，特别是对递归理论的贡献，该理论源于弗斯滕伯格（Furstenberg）的工作，灵感来自塞梅雷迪关于等差数列的定理；来自微软研究院和加州大学伯克利分校的YuvalPeres，他是研究概率论组合方面最著名的人之一；来自伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校的萨沙·科斯托奇卡，他是一位非常有影响力的数学家，一直致力于极值组合学的研究；孟菲斯大学的Ralph Faudree是ramsey型问题专家Paul Erdos最经常的合作者之一；苏黎世联邦理工学院的StephanieGerke，她在纯数学和计算机科学的界面上做了漂亮的工作；佐治亚理工学院的Tom Trotter，部分有序集现代理论的创始人之一；俄亥俄州立大学的鲍里斯·皮特尔，他是概率组合学领域的佼佼者之一；还有来自英国剑桥大学的马克·沃尔特斯，他证明了很多关于随机自举渗透和随机几何图的知识。来自布达佩斯的Andr'as Gy'arf'as将为广大观众做一场特别的“公开”讲座，其中包括该地区一些最优秀的高中生。与东海岸或西海岸的湾区不同，中南部无法举办许多高水平的数学会议；在孟菲斯举行的2007年当代组合学会议在某种程度上纠正了这种平衡。一年前，我们发现大力鼓励讲师和其他与会者进行个人接触的做法非常成功，我们希望在2007年的会议上也能这样做。毫无疑问，听Peter Lax， Vitaly Bergelson， YuvalPeres等人的演讲，特别是在会议期间与他们交谈，对于年轻和成熟的数学家来说都是非常鼓舞人心的。NSF的资助对会议的成功至关重要；其中大部分将用于帮助研究生和高级数学家来孟菲斯，这样他们就可以从讲座和与演讲者的个人接触中受益。

The aim of this conference is to bring together a group of outstanding mathematiciansloosely connected to combinatorics, understood in the widest sense. The meeting will givea chance to mathematicians from the Mid-South to benefit not only from the lectures butalso from personal contacts with the speakers.The main speaker at the conference is one of the most distinguished mathematicians today,Peter Lax of the Courant Institute in New York, the recipient of the National Medal ofScience in 1986, the Wolf Prize in 1987, and the Abel Prize in 2005. Very accurately,he has been described as the most versatile mathematician today. He started in puremathematics, but his greatest contributions have been to to the theory and applicationof partial differential equations and to the computation of their solutions. In particular,he constructed explicit solutions of nonlinear hyperbolic systems and identified classes ofespecially well-behaved systems. Lax is also a wonderful expositor, the author of severalsuccessful books, and a very approachable man.There will be several other exciting speakers at the meeting; they have been chosen becausethey are not only excellent mathematicians, but also wonderful expositors and very approachablepeople. They include Vitaly Bergelson of Ohio State University, who has mademajor contributions to ergodic theory, especially to recurrence theory stemming from thework of Furstenberg inspired by Szemeredi's theorem on arithmetic progressions; YuvalPeres from Microsoft Research and UC Berkeley, one of the most notable people workingon combinatorial aspects of probability theory; Sasha Kostochka from the University ofIllinois at Urbana-Champaign, a very powerful mathematician who is carrying the torchfor extremal combinatorics; Ralph Faudree from the University of Memphis, one of themost frequent collaborators of Paul Erdos, an expert on Ramsey-type problems; StephanieGerke of ETH in Zurich, who has done beautiful work on the interface of pure mathematicsand computer science; Tom Trotter of Georgia Tech, one of the founders of the moderntheory of partially ordered sets; Boris Pittel from Ohio State University, one of the bestpeople working on probabilistic combinatorics; and Mark Walters from the University ofCambridge, England, who has proved much about random bootstrap percolation and randomgeometric graphs. Andr'as Gy'arf'as from Budapest will give a special 'public' lectureaimed at a very wide audience, including some of the best high school students from thearea.Unlike the East Coast or the Bay Area on the West Coast, the Mid-South cannot boast ofmany high-level mathematical conferences; the Contemporary Combinatorics 2007 meetingin Memphis goes some way towards redressing the balance. The formula whereby personalcontacts between the lecturers and the other participants is greatly encouraged was foundto be very successful a year ago, and this what we hope to do at the 2007 meeting aswell. There is no doubt that listening to lectures by Peter Lax, Vitaly Bergelson, YuvalPeres, and others, and, especially, talking to them during the conference will be veryinspiring for young and established mathematicians alike. The NSF grant is absolutelyvital for the success of the meeting; most of it will be used to help graduate students andsenior mathematicians come to Memphis so that they can benefit from the lectures andthe personal contact with the speakers.