GUEST SPEAKERS
Sir Michael Francis Atiyah (Honorary professor at university of Edinbourgh)
Sir Michael Francis Atiyah was born in London in 1929. He graduated on Mathematics on the Trinity College of the University of Cambridge, of which it was named fellow in 1954, occupying the above mentioned position until 1961, year in which he moved to the University of Oxford to recover the same position in the St. Catherine College of the above mentioned university.
In 1962 he was elected a member of the Royal Society of London and from 1963 he occupied the prestigious Savilian Chair of Geometry of Oxford.
In 1969 he moves to Princeton (USA), where for three years he was a teacher of Mathematics of the Institute of Advanced Studies. To his return to England was nominated an investigative teacher of the Royal Society, coming back to his position in the University of Oxford and remaining in him until 1990, year in which he moves again to Cambridge after being nominated Master of Trinity College and to turn into the first director of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences Isaac Newton. The same year, he is elected president of the Royal Society, post that he used until 1995, when he is nominated Chancellor of Leicester's University, since he occupies until 2007. Nowadays he is an emeritus teacher in the University of Edinburgh. The teacher Sir Michael Francis Atiyah possesses an impressive list of distinctions that include the highest that are gave in the field of the mathematics: the Fields Medal in 1966 and the Abel Prize, this together Isaodore Singer. He has done contributions in a wide range of topics in mathematics centred about the interaction between the geometry and the analysis. His first important contribution (in collaboration with Friedrich Hirzebruch) was the development of a new and powerful tool in topology (K-theory) that he led to the solution of many extraordinarily difficult problems. Later (in collaboration with Isadore M. Singer) established an important theorem it brings over of the number of solutions of differential elliptical equations. This "Theorem of Index" joins the topology with the geometry and the analysis, creating new bridges between the mathematics and the theoretical physics.
Lecture:
“Polyhedra in Geometry, Physics and Chemistry”
Polyhedra, particuarly the regular Platonic solids such as the cube and the icosahedron, have attracted the attention of mankind for thousands of years. Stone models have been found in Scotland dating back to 2000 BC. Some polyhedra arise naturally in the form of crystals and, in recent years, chemists have discovered new forms of carbon named fullerenes, with shapes related to the icosahedron. More surprisingly,polyhedra with regular features arise in connection with various models of atomic nuclei. I will discuss the geometry behind the science and ilustrate it with pictures derived from computer calculations.
Dr. Sebastià Xambó i Descamps
(Prof. Computer-science and Theory of codification (UPC) Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Statistics of the UPC)
SEBASTIAN XAMBÓ DESCAMPS (Vilallonga de Ter, Girona, 1945) is a professor of Theory of the Information and the Codification (from 1993) in the Department of Applied Mathematics of the Technical University of Catalonia, the assigned to the Faculty of Mathematics and Statistics (FME), center in which there gives Geometry, Mathematical Models of the Physics and Theory of Codes, and professor of Algebra and Algebraic Geometry (1989-1993) of the Department of Algebra of the Complutensian University of Madrid. Previously he was a provisional teacher of the University of Barcelona (1969-1981) and of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (1972-1976) and titular teacher of Geometry and Topology (1982-1989) of the Department of Algebra and Geometry of the University of Barcelona.
It is Licensed in Mathematics (by degree and extraordinary prize) by the University of Barcelona (1969), post-graduate of Arts by the University of Brandeis (Boston, 1978) and doctor in Mathematics for the University of Barcelona (1981), his research has focused in topics of algebraic geometry (algebraic classic geometry, theory of intersections)In systems of mathematical computation (effective algorithms in algebra and algebraic geometry, programs of mathematical manipulation and interfaces Web them to accede) and his applications (codes correctors of mistakes, computational methods, technologies Web for the teaching and the learning). Some recent publications: Using Intersection Theory (Mathematical Mexican Society, 1996); Geometry (Edicions UPC, 2002); Block Error, Correcting Codes, to Computational Primer (Springer-Verlag, 2003) e‐Learning Mathematics (con 4 coautores, Proceedings ICM2006, EMS, 2006); Computing the characteristic numbers of cuspidal cubics in (coautores X. Hernández y J.M. Miret, Journal of Symbolic Computation, 2007) and Computing some fundamental numbers of the variety of nodal cubics in (authors J.M. Miret, J. Pujolàs and K. Saurav, acepted in the Journal of Symbolic Computation, 2009).
He has been the president of the Catalan Society of Mathematics of the IEC (1995-2002), vicerrector of Systems of Information and Documentation (1998-2002), dean of the FME (April, 2003 to March, 2009), and president of the Deans' Conference of Mathematics (February, 2004 to November, 2006).
Lecture:
"Quantum computation: mathematical or Mathematical physical physics?"
In a preliminary part there will be reminded a few experimental facts obtained during the last decades, specially in purely quantum phenomena as the interrelation and the teletransport, and also some mathematical elementary facts, specially in the hermitian and unitary counterfoils. In the second part there will appear a mathematical model of the notion of q-computer and of concepts subordinated as q-logical doors, q-computation and q-algorithms/programs, specially in the examples, including it q-transformed of Fourier and Shor's q-algorithm of factoring in polinominal time of entire positive numbers. Later index an axiomatic approach of the quantum mechanics and will use to relate the previous q-notions to his possible physical accomplishments, specially in some opened problems and in possible lines of future work. The base of this material is the thesis of Juanjo Rué, " A mathematical model for the quantum computation: foundations, algorithms and applications " (July, 2007), directed by Lluís Torner and the lecturer.
Dr. Juan Antonio Belmonte Avilés (Project coordinator of the IAC)
The Dr. Juan Antonio Belmonte Avilés is an astronomer of the Institute of Astrophysics of Canary Island where he has showed history of the astronomy and archeo-astronomy and from where he carries out the investigation in exoplanets, stellar physics and cultural astronomy. He has written or edited more than one dozen of books and written more than 200 articles about these matters so much in scientific magazines. He has been the Director of the Museum of the Science and the Cosmos of Tenerife between 1995 and 2000. At present he is the president of the European Society of Cultural Astronomy (ESCA) and of the Committee of Adjudication Times (CAT) of the observatories of Canary Islands.
In the last years he has developed his research on a large scale on the astronomic traditions of the former cultures of the Mediterranean and beyond. Born in Murcia in 1962, he is graduated in Physical Sciences by the University of Barcelona (1985) and Doctor in Astrophysics by the University of La Laguna (1989).
Lecture:
" From Lascaux to Corot-Exo 7 b: Ten Milleniums of Astronomy "
What have they jointly the dolmens of the Iberian Peninsula, the moais of the Pascua Islands, the Egyptian pyramids or the Moslem mosques? Undoubtedly, all of them are magnificent structures samples of the construction human genius, but all of them are also examples of the human need to be orientated in a correct way in the time and in the space. The astronomy always was the simplest tool to obtain this aim. In this essay I will give themselves a few brief brushstrokes as the humanity has looked at the sky during thousands of years to create calendars or to orientate his sacred buildings appropriatly in a permanent search of the metaphysical aspects of the life, the death and the renaissance.