July 12-16, 2010
Lorentz Center, Leiden,
the Netherlands
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A picturesque Dutch windmill, as seen
from the workshop boatride. |
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Marco Romito, along with organizers Jens Rademacher and Greg Pavliotis. |
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Roughly 40 mathematicians gathered at the Lorentz Center in Leiden from July
12-16, 2010, for a workshop entitled "Coherent
Structures in Evolutionary Equations." Organized by Greg Pavliotis and Jens Rademacher, the
workshop was focused on bringing together researchers from various sub-fields
within partial differential equations and dynamical systems whose work involves
pattern formation and evolutionary PDEs in one form or another. In particular,
the workshop was a great success at bringing together those who work on both
deterministic and stochastic equations to share ideas and perspectives on a
variety of problems.
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After recovering from the World Cup final the night before, the workshop began
on Monday with tutorials on the Ginzburg-Landau equation and non-uniqueness
issues in S(P)DEs. The day concluded with a wine and cheese reception and, for
at least some participants, a bike ride to a local bar using the convenient
Lorentz Center rental bikes. The workshop continued with a diverse and
interesting
program, including topics such as space-time chaos, metastability - from both a
deterministic and stochastic point of view, and solitons. Because of the
relatively small number of participants, the organizers were able to schedule
only one talk at a time (no difficult choices to make between simultaneous
sessions!) and also include a nontrivial amount of time for focus group
discussions and other collaboration. Wednesday night we were treated to a
conference dinner and boat
ride through some local canals and lakes.
[Aside: I learned that, according to some, the technical terms are not
"stochastic" and "deterministic," but rather "stochastic" and
"non-stochastic." I believe this is what passes in the stochastics community
for a joke.]
Participants Johannes Zimmer, Karsten
Matthies, Michael
Herrmann, and
Hannes Uecker hard at work.
Personally, I came away from the workshop with a sense that there really had
been some meaningful interactions between people who typically don't attend
the same conferences (at least not ones small enough where you actually meet
new people). I highly encourage interested parties to organize small workshops that feature such
diverse programs. Also, I strongly recommend visiting the Lorentz Center if
you get the opportunity. The staff do an excellent job of providing an
environment conducive to mathematics!
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Marco Romito, Martin Hairer, and Dirk
Blömker in the Lorenz Center
common room. |
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Part of the upper deck during the
conference dinner and boatride. |
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Acknowledgements: Thanks to the organizers, Jens and Greg! Also thanks to
Daniel Sutton and Wael Mohammed for providing the photographs. This article
was written by Margaret Beck. Any findings, conclusions, opinions, or recommendations are
those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other
participant in the workshop.