2010 Yamabe Memorial Symposium

The principal investigators propose to organize the fifth Yamabe Memorial Symposium, with an emphasis on geometry and low-dimensional topology, at the School of Mathematics of the University of Minnesota from Friday to Sunday, October 8-10, 2010. The list of speakers includes Toby Colding, Kenji Fukaya, David Gabai, Ko Honda, Claude LeBrun, Melissa Liu, Yi Ni, Ron 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 occurred 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 previous Yamabe Memorial Symposiums were held in 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008 respectively with a great success.

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