Summer Institute on Algebraic Geometry

American Mathematical Society, Providence RI

Investigators

Abstract

Algebraic Geometry Summer Institute (Proposal DMS-0456683.) A large scale summer institute in algebraic geometry, three weeks in duration, will be held during July-August 2005 at the University of Washington, Seattle. Organizational support will be provided by the American Mathematical Society and the Clay Mathematics Institute. Each week will have a general topic as a focus and at the same time will include a component of core "classical" algebraic geometry. The foci will be: Mathematical Physics in Algebraic Geometry; Combinatorics, Commutative Algebra and Classical Algebraic Geometry; and Arithmetic Algebraic Geometry. Three plenary morning lecture series will be held in each week, lecturers having been selected as leading researchers who are at the same time exemplary expositors. In addition, leading specialists will be invited to serve as seminar leaders, and will select high impact lectures given by the best lecturers for afternoon seminars. Additional activities will include the CMI distinguished lectures and an evening graduate program. Algebraic geometry, the study of geometric shapes defined by polynomial equations, is a vast generalization of the high-school topic "analytic geometry". It has enjoyed much cross-fertilization in past decades with areas in pure mathematics, applied mathematics, computing and theoretical physics. One way American algebraic geometers have maintained the vibrancy of the field is by holding a large scale, NSF-funded summer institute about every decade, an institute which aims to bring participants up to the forefront of research in the salient direction the field has taken in the previous years, and to project directions which the field is expected to take in the following years. These institutes have had a crucial formative role on the subject, with enormous impact especially on the emerging careers of young researchers. This summer institute project aims to follow in their footsteps.