Seville, European capital of mathematics

The European Mathematical Championship is being held this week in Seville. The 9th European Congress of Mathematicians (ECM), considered the second most important in the world in this field, kicks off today at the Higher Technical School of Engineering of the University of Seville. The event, which takes place every four years in a different European city and is the second most important in the field, breaks the record this year record number of experts in attendance (which is approaching 1,400, coming from all over the world) and in number of presentations and symposiaDuring these days there will be 10 plenary lectures, 2 special lectures, 64 mini-symposia, 270 thematic communications, in addition to invited lectures, workshops and a cultural agenda that includes four exhibitions with mathematics as a backdrop.

The opening ceremonyThe event, which took place this morning at the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville, was attended by the president of the European Mathematical Society (EMS), Jan Philip Solovej; the president of the Organizing Committee, Juan González-Meneses, from the University of Seville; and the vice-president, Isabel Fernández-Delgado, as well as the other committee members. Among the authorities present were the Deputy Minister of the Regional Ministry of Universities, Research and Innovation of the Andalusian Regional Government, Lorena Garrido; the Secretary General for Research and Innovation, Antonio Posadas Chinchilla; the Vice-Rector for Research at the University of Seville, Julián Martínez Fernández; the Third Deputy Mayor of Seville and Delegate for the Cartuja, Innovation Parks, Employment, Economy, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Area, Álvaro Pimentel; and the presidents of the EMS Prize juries, Professors Pavel Exner, Peregrina Quintela Estévez, Karine Chemla, and Patrick Farrell. 

In the words of the president of the European Mathematical Society (EMS), Jan Philip Solovej, “The high level of the presentations and events that will take place throughout the week is The prestige of the prizes awarded today, the most important in Mathematics internationally, second only to the Fields Medals”

For his part, the president of the 9EMC Organizing Committee, Juan González-Meneses, from the University of Seville, highlighted “the strong involvement of the Spanish mathematical community and, in particular, from all the Universities of Almería, Málaga and Cádiz, as well as Granada and Seville, in the organization of the Congress.”. 

Isabel Fernández Delgado, vice president of the Organizing Committee, noted that “Opposite this building stands a replica of the Nao Victoria, the ship that in the 16th century departed from the port of Seville to complete the first circumnavigation of the Earth. Just as this ship forged new paths, we hope that this Congress will foster new connections.” and significant progress”

The Deputy Minister of Universities, Research and Innovation of the Andalusian Regional Government, Lorena Garrido, took the opportunity to emphasize that "We must highlight that Mathematics is one of the most in-demand degrees in our Andalusian university offerings (...) It shows us the importance and evolution of this area of ​​knowledge and its high employability."

Likewise, the Vice-Rector for Research at the University of Seville, Julián Martínez Fernández, mentioned that “the fact of Seville's selection as the first host of this international congress reflects the high quality of its scientific publications"which we hope will soon be recognized with the seal of excellence.".

The Third Deputy Mayor of Seville City Council and Delegate for the Cartuja Area, Innovative Parks, Employment, Economy, Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Álvaro Pimentel, spoke to remind attendees that “Seville wants to be, during this week, the best setting to welcome you and to stimulate the dissemination of a science that is present beyond the walls of universities and research centers. History, architecture, technology, and crafts are also mathematics”.

Presentation of 14 awards to leading mathematicians

Group photo of the award winners, the jury and the organizers of the Congress. 

The most anticipated moment of the day was the awarding of the 10 European Mathematical Society awards, and four other special prizes, which are the most important in Europe in Mathematics, and the second most important in the world, after the prestigious Fields Medals of international recognition.

Among the special awards, Fabien Casenave, a researcher at the French multinational technology company Safran, has been the winner of Felix Klein AwardThe prize is awarded to mathematicians under 38 whose research helps solve industrial problems. Casenave develops artificial intelligence techniques to improve simulations of physical processes.

He Paul Lévy Prize in Probability Theory has fallen into Jeremy QuastelQuastel, a professor at the University of Toronto and one of the world's leading experts in probability theory, which he uses to understand the large-scale behavior of interacting systems of many particles. Stochastic equations like KPZ pose a challenge for mathematicians. Quastel and his collaborators were the first to find an exact solution to this equation.

On the other hand, the Otto Neugebauer Prize has been delivered to Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze, from the University of Adger (Kristiansand, Norway). He is a German historian of mathematics, especially known for his historical research on the emigration of European mathematicians during the Nazi era.

Finally, the Cornelius Lanczos PrizeThe prize, which is awarded to a mathematician or scientist for the development of outstanding mathematical software, has recognized the MUMPS software libraryDeveloped by researchers Patrick Amestoy, Jean-Yves L'Excellent, and Chiara Puglisi, MUMPs is a software library for quickly and accurately solving systems of linear equations, based on twenty years of research.

For its part, the EMS grants other Ten prizes for 10 young mathematicians under 35 years oldIn recognition of their exceptional contributions to mathematics. The winners, who must be of European nationality or have carried out their work in Europe, are:

• Maria Colombo (EPFL) won a gold medal at the 2006 International Mathematical Olympiad. Within mathematical analysis, Colombo is an exceptionally prolific and versatile mathematician. A recurring theme in her work is the study of irregular solutions to nonlinear partial differential equations, which describe physical processes and geometric problems. 

• Cristiana de Filippis (University of Parma, Italy) Specialist in calculus of variations and in elliptic partial differential equations (which describe the equilibrium states of classical physical systems, such as the electric field created by a distribution of electric charges, or the temperature distribution in a material). 

• Jessica Fintzen (University of Bonn). German, she studied at the University of Bremen and completed her doctoral thesis at Harvard University. She is currently a professor at the University of Bonn. She received the award for her transformative work in the representation theory of p-adic groups, in particular for her spectacular proof that Yu's construction of supercuspid representations is exhaustive.

• Nina Holden (New York University, Courant Institute, USA) works in mathematical physics, complex analysis, and probability, in a recent and very active area connected to statistical physics and quantum field theory. She won the Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize in 2021. 

• Tom Hutchcroft, British, currently a professor at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for his revolutionary contributions to probability theory and geometric group theory, in particular to percolation theory in general graphs, combining techniques from geometry, operator theory, group theory, and functional analysis.
  
  

• Jacek Jendrej (Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, France) studies nonlinear partial differential equations that describe wave propagation and interaction. These equations have particularly interesting solutions, observed in many natural phenomena: these are called solitons or solitary waves. 
  
  

• Adam M. Kanigowski (University of Maryland, USA). Professor at the University of Maryland, in the United States, is an expert in dynamical systems, an area of ​​mathematics that studies the evolution over time of all kinds of processes, and more generally, the concepts of change and transformation. 
  
  

• Frederick Manners, University of California San Diego, USA. Manners' scientific interests are varied and include number theory, mathematical analysis, and ergodic theory, although his main specialty is additive combinatorics. 

• Richard Montgomery (University of Warwick, UK) specializes in combinatorics: the study of discrete structures, such as graphs (an abstraction of objects consisting of interconnected elements, like a subway network or the neurons and axons in the brain). More specifically, he is interested in extremal combinatorics, which seeks to understand how large these structures must be for certain properties to emerge. 

• Danylo Radchenko (CNRS, University of Lille). Ukrainian, he was a gold medalist at the International Mathematical Olympiad in 2007. The jury awarded him the prize for his construction of optimal spherical designs and his pioneering contribution to the new field of Fourier interpolation, as well as for his contributions to the theory of polylogarithms.

Andalusian mathematics, of a high international level 

This Congress is held under the auspices of the European Mathematical Society (EMS) and has landed in Seville thanks to the candidacy presented by the University of Seville (US). The president of the Organizing Committee, Professor Juan González-Meneses, championed the Seville project, which was ultimately chosen by vote over the strong bid submitted by Lisbon. The 9th ECM Seville 2024 benefits from the expertise of the Institute of Mathematics of the University of Seville (IMUS) and the Institute of Mathematics of the University of Granada (IEMATH-GR), both branches of the Andalusian Institute of Mathematics (IAMAT).

The scientific event is headquartered at the Higher Technical School of Engineering (ETSI) of the University of Seville, which hosts the main sessions, and also includes the Barceló Hotel Convention Centre. In addition, satellite events are held throughout Andalusia ., Furthermore, the 2024 European Mathematical Society (EMS) council was held in Granada last weekend. 

The University of Seville, and Andalusian public universities in general, boast world-class research in mathematics, as demonstrated by all research rankings. The organizers hope that holding this congress at the University of Seville will solidify the international recognition of the research conducted at the institution and, at the same time, bring this work even closer to society, which is increasingly convinced of the important role mathematics plays in their lives and well-being. 

In addition, 100 mathematics students are volunteering at this event, and a total of 120 scholarships have been awarded to mathematicians from developing countries as part of the international cooperation program. 

A program with diverse themes

The lineup of mathematicians invited to give presentations at the event brings together some of the most prestigious figures internationally, and they will address a wide range of topics. Among the most anticipated speakers are Fabio Tonelli, from the Vienna University of Technology, who in recent work has studied the equation known as KPZ (for Kardar, Parisi, and Zhang), which models growth and aggregation processes, such as those of a tumor, a city, or the way a crystal forms by adding atoms from its surroundings. Also Annalisa Buffa, professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and an expert in numerical analysis with industrial applications, who will speak, broadly speaking, about the development of mathematical simulations and algorithms for testing the machines of the future industry. Israeli mathematician Avi Wigderson, professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, an expert in theory of computation, algorithm design, cryptography, and quantum computing and communication, will deliver the special 'Abel Lecture'. For his part, Etienne Ghys, mathematician and professor at the École Normale Supérieure of the University of Lyon and emeritus research director of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), will give a lecture on the mathematical formula for scoring a goal and other communication skills. And, within the national scene, and more specifically from the University of Seville, Professor José López-Barneo, founder of the Institute of Biomedicine of Seville, will speak on the search for a neuroprotective therapy for Parkinson's disease, while Montserrat Vilà, from the Doñana Biological Station of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), will give a talk on "Biotic Globalization by Invasive Species." 

Cultural agenda; four parallel exhibitions

As part of the cultural offerings associated with the 9th ECM, four exhibitions with mathematics as their backdrop will also be on display during these days. One of them, “Maps. Cartographic heritage in Seville from the 15th to the 18th centuries”The first exhibition, located at the Cajasol Foundation in Seville, is a curated collection of maps and map books from the period spanning the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance to the Enlightenment, originating from the Archive of the Indies, the Colombina Library, and the University of Seville. The other three exhibitions will be on display at the main venue, the Technical School of Engineering in Seville ““A Geometric Walk Through the Alhambra”, which explains some of the mathematical secrets present in the Alhambra of Granada;Women in Mathematics From Around the World. A gallery of portraits”, which presents 34 comprehensive profiles of female mathematicians from around the world, through photographs, texts and videos and “Knots”Aimed at the general public, it features ten three-dimensional models of mathematical knots specially selected for their particularities, symmetries and beauty, which guide the visitor through the fascinating world of Knot Theory.