2006 Yamabe Memorial Symposium

Abstract

Award: DMS-0555016

Principal Investigator: Jiaping Wang, Robert D. Gulliver, Tian-Jun Li

The principal investigators propose to organize the third Yamabe

Memorial Symposium, with an emphasis on geometry and symplectic

topology, at the School of Mathematics of the University of

Minnesota from Friday to Sunday, September 22-24, 2006. The list

of speakers will include Denis Auroux, Yakov Eliashberg, Mikio

Furuta, Helmut Hofer, Dusa McDuff, Peter Ozsvath, Yongbin Ruan

and Ronald Stern.

Professor Hidehiko Yamabe (1923--1960) was an active and highly

collaborative mathematician in the School of Mathematics of the

University of Minnesota from 1954 to 1960. His sudden illness

and untimely death occured in the same year that he moved to

Northwestern University. His work on topological groups,

geometry and analysis were outstanding contributions to modern

mathematics. In year 2001, we proposed to enhance the Yamabe

Memorial Lecture by creating the Yamabe Memorial Symposium, a

top-level biennial geometry conference in the School of

Mathematics, University of Minnesota. Every two years, perhaps

in the Fall of even-numbered years, mathematicians will gather at

the University of Minnesota for a long weekend to hear geometry

talks, discuss the latest research and interact with graduate

students and junior researchers. In each biennium, a specific

area within geometry will be singled out for special emphasis.

One goal will be, as a way to honor the memory of Hidehiko

Yamabe, to advance areas of mathematics related to his interests,

which touched in a substantial and ground-breaking way on several

quite different areas of mathematics, all of which may be roughly

described as having significant geometric aspects. At the same

time, it will provide a valuable opportunity for graduate

students and junior researchers to interact with, and learn from,

mathematicians working at the highest international level.

Finally, a long-lasting benefit will be the stimulation of

innovative developments in mathematics research.

The conference web page is http://www.math.umn.edu/yamabe/.