Chris Liebold
TU Ilmenau/Michael ReichelAround 300 mathematicians from all over Germany and the world will be guests in Ilmenau from September 25 to 28. The focus of the annual conference of the German Mathematical Society (DMV), organized by the Department of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of the TU Ilmenau, is the professional exchange of members and guests on current topics in mathematics. Thus, the annual meeting is a reflection of the mathematical research landscape.
The conference will be opened on Monday, September 25, in the Festhalle Ilmenau by Thuringia's Minister of the Interior and Deputy Prime Minister Georg Maier, Mayor Dr. Daniel Schultheiß, the Vice President for Research and Young Scientists Prof. Stefan Sinzinger, and Prof. Joachim Escher, President of the DMV and Professor of Mathematics at Leibniz Universität Hannover.
The highlight of the opening day will be the Emmy Noether Lecture by Sarah Zerbes from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich), one of the world's leading number theorists. In her lecture, she will present the new methods she has developed for constructing Euler systems, which promise major advances in research on the so-called Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture - one of the most mysterious unsolved problems in number theory
Other keynote speakers include Afonso S. Bandeira of ETH Zurich, Julia Böttcher of the London School of Economics and Political Science, Mario Ohlberger of the Univeristät Münster, Stefanie Petermichl of Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Andreas Thom of TU Dresden, Christiane Tretter of the University of Bern, and Katrin Wendland of Trinity College Dublin.
In the course of the four-day conference, the mathematicians will deal with current research topics from a wide variety of subfields of mathematics, including discrete mathematics, logic, analysis and differential equations, geometry and topology, the mathematics of data science and the mathematical analysis of complex quantum systems, in the context of short lectures and mini-symposia. The social dimensions of mathematics, the history of mathematics, and mathematics in art are also addressed.
Scientists from the TU Ilmenau will present, among other things, their research on model predictive control (MPC) methods for process optimization, data-driven methods for dynamic systems, and so-called probabilistic methods, a proof strategy that can be applied in number theory, linear algebra, analysis, and computer science, among others.
Another highlight of the conference is the public lecture by the renowned U.S. mathematician Alex Kontorovich from Rutgers University in the U.S. on Wednesday, September 27, at 7 p.m. in the Festhalle Ilmenau. In his contribution on the topic of "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall", the multi-talented mathematician and musician will present how geometry and arithmetic can interact in unexpected ways to form so-called fractal sphere packings from reflections in curved mirrors.
The conference will be framed by a diverse conference program in Ilmenau, including an organ concert by Karlheinz Schüffler on the Walcker organ, the largest Romantic organ in Thuringia, at 6 p.m. on the eve of the conference, Sept. 24, in Ilmenau's Sankt Jakobus Church. Karlheinz Schüffler is a church musician and professor emeritus of mathematics at the Hochschule Niederrhein in Krefeld. He will be accompanied on the organ by Emilia Krendelsberger, a student of Cybernetics at the TU Ilmenau and Michael Schönheit's organ class at the Nuremberg University of Music.
Admission to the concert and the public lecture is free. All interested parties are cordially invited to both events.
In addition, a teachers' day will be held on Wednesday afternoon, for which mathematics teachers can register free of charge.