In this issue of the Newsletter

Milestones and Prizes

From Billiard Dynamics to Riemann Surfaces

Random Paths and Purpose: A Conversation with Scott Sheffield





Speaker: Ari Pakman (Columbia University) Title: Fast Penalized State-space Methods for Inferring Dendritic Synaptic Connectivity When: Tuesday, May 1, 2012 Time: 11:30 am Where: Simons Center, Lecture Hall 102 Abstract: We present fast methods for filtering voltage measurements and performing optimal inference of the location and strength of synaptic connections in large dendritic trees. Given noisy, subsampled … Read more
William Bialek, Princeton University, is one of the pioneers in the field of Biophysics. His achievements span from Computational Biology to Neuroscience and Information Theory. As the speaker for the second Della Pietra Lecture Series he explains to a packed crowd what this cross-cutting discipline is about.
On Thursday, May 3rd and Friday, May 4th free-lance Mathematician Dr. Jeffrey Weeks will deliver three talks for the Della Pietra Lecture Series at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, Stony Brook University. The capstone talk of this series “The Shape of Space,” will be held on Thursday, May 3rd at 7:00 pm in … Read more
Speaker: Ludwig Krinner Title: A Neural Network Model of Working Memory When: Thursday, April 26th, 2012 Time: ??? Where: Simons Center PDF of presentation
Organized by Mike Douglas, Gordon Kane and Dave Morrison String phenomenology is the field which attempts to make contact between string theory and “real world” physics such as experiments at particle colliders, cosmology and astroparticle physics. Especially after the duality revolution of the 90’s, major progress has been made towards constructing string models which reproduce … Read more
The Simons Center for Geometry and Physics Art Program along with Stony Brook University’s Department of Theater Arts is pleased to host a staged reading of Peter Parnell’s QED, a play about the life and work of renowned Physicist Richard Feynman. Seating is general, admission is free and open to the public. For dramaturgy and … Read more
On Thursday, April 19th and Friday, April 20th noted Physicist William Bialek will deliver four talks for the Della Pietra Lecture Series at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, Stony Brook University. Dr. Bialek’s first talk, to be held on Thursday, April 19th at 11:00 am in SCGP Lecture Hall, Room 102 is entitled, “150 years … Read more
With collaborative research started in the fall of 2011 at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, the authors study Einstein metrics on smooth compact 4-manifolds with an edge-cone singularity of specified cone angle along an embedded 2-manifold.
In 2009 the Simons Foundation initiated a program through which 46 universities have awarded a total of 70 Postdoctoral Fellowships in mathematics, theoretical physics and theoretical computer science. We have been delighted by the outstanding quality of the appointments made. In a three-day meeting beginning April 11, the Simons Foundation will bring together this remarkable … Read more