Workshop at BIRS: Localized Multi-Dimensional Patterns

By Peter van Heijster (handling editor Jens Rademacher)
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While the whole of the US was facing a sizzling heat wave and Europe was washed away by months of rain, some of us where so lucky to get invited to the workshop: ``Localized Multi-Dimensional Patterns in Dissipative Systems: Theory, Modeling, and Experiments''. These lucky 42 (where have I heard that number before? Wasn't it the answer to something important?) happily packed their bags, hopped in a plane and flew to the beautiful, mostly sunny, Canadian Rocky Mountains. Whether it is your first (as was the case for me) or your tenth visit, when you arrive in Banff your breath is taken away: spiking snowy mountains, snaking meandering rivers, and swarming exotic wildlife, and unfortunately some annoying mosquitos.

After the "reunion" with old friends during the Sunday evening dinner, or at the bar later that evening, the workshop began early monday morning. We started with a day of buckling, snakes and localized two-dimensional crime hot-spots. I can't remember it exactly, but I think the police was the slow variable. After a well deserved excellent dinner, we ended the day with five short talks before we were allowed to go off and dissolve our jet lags.


Group picture in front of the BIRS building.

During the next four days many more excellent talks were given, but one presentation in particular was (for me) mind blowing: the talk by Prof. Kondo in the Tuesday afternoon session. Under the title "Turing patterns in a real biological system", he told us about his longtime love for Turing patterns and his quest to observe them in pigmentation patterns of the skin of zebra-fish in his lab named Laboratory of Pattern Formation. The zebrafish has black pigment cells and yellow pigment cells, and the patterns observed on the skin are the result of the interaction between these cells. By ablating pigment cells using real lasers (who said mathematics is boring?), he analyzed the response of the skin and studied the dynamics of the recovering patterns. Afterwards, he compared this with results of a simulation of a Turing model, and the similarities were striking. Mathematics sometimes can be so beautiful!

Besides mathematics, there was also some leisure time, and on Wednesday afternoon most of us hiked up to the summit of Sulphur Mountain, named after its natural hot springs. With its top at 2.281m (or 7,486 ft), the view over the valley is astonishing and definitely worth the sweat. Maybe not surprising, but most of us didn't have the energy to hike back and a one-way trip down with the gondola was a perfect alternative.

  
Dinner and Lecture impressions.

On Friday, this successful, exciting, and well-organized workshop unfortunately already ended and we all went our own ways. Some of us went to the Equadiff in England, some of us went home. And I? I stayed another week in the beautiful Canadian Rockies enjoying the Canadian hospitality, the mountains, the wild water rivers and the elks. Life is good!

Peter van Heijster
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