by scribe | Sep 30, 2013 | off-topic
(Originally posted 26 September.) During yesterday’s boat ride on the Neckar River, I had the chance to interview one of the youngest participants in this year’s Heidelberg Laureate Forum: Lisa Sauermann, an undergraduate at the University of Bonn, who was celebrating...
by scribe | Sep 29, 2013 | off-topic
(Originally posted 24 September.) Here’s an amazing trick that Curtis McMullen performed in yesterday’s workshop on Quantum Mechanics and Topology, organized by Ryan Grady. McMullen modestly declined to be photographed, so here Grady demonstrates the...
by scribe | Sep 26, 2013 | off-topic
I wasn’t going to write about this. I was going to keep it to myself. But then Klaus Tschira, the chairperson of the HLF Foundation, mentioned it in his welcoming speech, and he didn’t mince words. “Some may feel there are not many mathematicians...
by scribe | Sep 24, 2013 | off-topic
When I came to the Heidelberg Laureate Forum, I expected a feast for my mind. I didn’t expect a feast for my eyes! Take a look at this incredible video, by Diana Davis, which was featured in today’s lecture by Fields medalist Curtis McMullen. Davis, who is...
by scribe | Sep 24, 2013 | off-topic
For generations, geometers have gotten used to not being able to see the objects that they prove theorems about. It’s a somewhat sad development in a subject that began in Euclid’s day with the splendidly visual concepts of points, lines, triangles, circles, conic...
