Happy New Year!

 2012 is the 21st anniversary of ICMS and we’re getting ready for a year of exciting workshops and related activities. 

If you want to focus on our forthcoming workshops then you’ll find a list of them on the Workshops Page.  These events bring together leading international researchers for a week of formal and informal exchange of ideas at the forefront of mathematics.

The full list of events in which ICMS is involved appears on our Calendar Page.  AS well as the workshops this page has links to

• associated meetings like the anunal mathematical neuroscience gathering,
• postgraduate training events such as the SMSTC Symposia, 
• public engagement events - open lectures and science festival events
• seminars that we host for other organisations such as the Royal Statistical Society.

These events will be added to over the course of the year so bookmark the  Calendar Page and visit regulary.

Winter Holidays at ICMS

ICMS has announced its winter closure dates.  The offices will close at 5pm on Thursday 22 December 2011 and reopen on Wednesday 04 January 2012.

Traditional Swedish Christmas heart made by Helene Frossling from recycled journal pages.

We wish all the visitors to this site the compliments of the season and the best of wishes for the New Year.

Popular maths goes international!

The European Mathematical Society has launched a multi-lingual website Mathematics in Europe with the aim of raising general awareness of mathematical activities across Europe. The site is for

• everyone who is interested in mathematics: journalists, secondary-school students, students at universities, teachers, professional mathematicians
• everyone looking for suggestions for increasing public awareness of mathematics.

 

Dots and Holes at the Edinburgh International Science Festival

Next week ICMS will be the proverbial hive of activity!  As well as hosting the Mathematical Neuroscience 2011 workshop we have two public lectures as part of Edinburgh International Science Festival.

Robert Ghrist of the University of Pennsylvania will be in Edinburgh on Tuesday 12 April to deliver a Distinguished Lecture at the School of Informatics for the Scottish Topology Seminar of the School of Mathematics and to give a more general interest talk about the Mathematics of Holes as part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival.  His talk introduces `topology’ – the mathematical study of holes – and uses a century’s worth of holey innovations to explain why your cell phone drops calls, why your GPS plans erratic travel routes, and why you can’t find good, cheap, healthy fast-food.

Two days later, on Thursday 14 April, our own Scientific Director, Keith Ball, will be here to tell you about Counting Dots and Pick’s Theorem.  An interesting piece of recreational maths , Pick’s Theorem also provides an excellent illustration of how mathematicians think about research problems.

The formula calculates the area of certain polygons but it also captures the fundamental property of prime numbers that underlies the cryptographic systems used to protect financial transactions and the patterns produced by the children’s toy, Spirograph.

Both talks take place at 7pm in the main lecture theatre at 15 South College Street.  Tickets can be booked through the Festival’s box office using the following links:

• Mathematics of Holes
• Counting Dots

We look forward to seeing you at one or both of them!

NAIS/CANPDE meeting and a new Dawn for Knowledge Transfer!

2011 sees ICMS getting off to a flying start.  Three working days after the winter break our first workshop of the year started.  The following week we play host to joint event from our collaborators NAIS and CANPDE.

18 January is the beginning of Advanced Numerical Studies in Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations, a 4-day meeting  organized by the Numerical Algorithms and Intelligent Software Centre and the Centre for Analysis and Nonlinear PDE. The goal of this meeting is is to study problems at the interface of the numerics and PDE communities,  examining a variety of different problems in nonlinear partial differential equations for which numerical treatments and the use of high performance computers may lead to important new insight.

This event gives Dawn Wasley, ICMS’ and NAIS’ newest member of staff, her first opportunity to meet the wider NAIS community. Dawn took up her post as Knowledge Transfer Officer for ICMS and NAIS at the beginning of December and is now becoming involved both organisations’ events.  Of particular interest to Dawn will be the applications strand of meeting. All her colleagues at ICMS and NAIS welcome Dawn to their teams and, through her role, look forward to productive collaborations outside academia.

• More on Advanced Numerical Studies in Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations
• More on Knowledge Transfer at ICMS

Winter holiday closure

ICMS wishes everyone the very best for the holiday season.

We close on 23 Decmber 2010 and open again, for a busy and exciting New Year, on 5 January 2011. Take a look at our calendar for 2011 to see what’s been announced so far.

Snow news is good news

Edinburgh under snow

In spite of the massive snow falls in the east of Scotland, ICMS is continuing to function more or less as normal in its headquarters in the centre of Edinburgh.  If you are planning to attend an event at ICMS next week and can travel safely then we will be here to greet you.

That said, a number of staff who live outside the city have been unable to get to the office but are able to attend to some things remotely.  For the city centre dwellers the trudge through the slush is unappealing  but quite manageable and our two Scandinavian staff members are finding the current conditions perfectly normal and wondering what all the fuss is about!

The view from ICMS' window

Snowman, Old College and the Tron

 

Jerry Marsden

Jerrold Eldon Marsden, the Carl F. Braun Professor at Caltech, passed away on September 21, 2010 at the age of 68. Professor Marsden was the chair of the ICMS programme committee from 1994 to 1997: a post in which he strongly influenced the development of the centre and the crucial choice of workshops.

Marsden was one of the world’s leading experts in theoretical mechanics: including fluid mechanics, elasticity, control theory, dynamical systems, and numerical methods. His research led to practical advances in, among other things, spacecraft mission design, the modelling of turbulence, and the design of underwater vehicles.

Jerry, as he was always known, was much loved as a colleague and teacher and received numerous awards for both research and teaching. He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2006.

Caltech have set up a website “In Memory of Jerry Marsden” for people to post their remembrances and it also includes  information regarding a planned memorial service for Jerry.

http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~marsden/remembrances/?p=1

Keith Ball Begins His Tenure as ICMS Scientific Director

On 1 September Professor Keith Ball began his tenure as scientific director of ICMS in Edinburgh.

In his first week in the role Professor Ball said “I am excited and honoured to be starting as scientific director at ICMS. I have organised and attended workshops here and always found the staff wonderfully helpful, efficient and easy to work with. They have made ICMS an exceptionally valuable part of the British and international mathematical community.”

Professor Ball succeeds  John Toland who held the position for eight years from September 2002. When asked about Professor Toland’s legacy Keith Ball went on to say “It is a little daunting to follow a director as successful as John Toland, under whose guidance the centre has delivered a superb programme of research workshops and played a vital role in the education of Scottish PhD students. Fortunately he has taken great trouble to pass on as much of his expertise as possible.”

Professor Keith Ball is the Astor Professor of Mathematics at University College London.
Professor John Toland is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Bath.

Helen runs for Britain

ICMS staff member  Helen Bridle will be representing Great Britain in long distance and sprint events at the World Orienteering Chamionships in Trondheim, Norway later this month.

Helen has been orienteering for over ten years and represented also Great Britain in the European Championships this year.  A full profile of her orienteeing career can be seen here http://runners.worldofo.com/helenbridle.html to gether with selection of pictures of her in action.