Sh:E70 Plenary speakers answer two questions a complex problem with many parame- open to rigorously explain why this ters and degrees of freedom and allow- crystallization occurs, i.e., demonstrat- ing it to tend to its extreme value. ing mathematically that the arrange- I have been interested in each of ments which have the least energy these questions, but particularly in the are necessarily periodic. To me, this is second and third. For paern forma- a very fascinating question. While it is tion, some specific interests of mine quite simple to pose, we still do not have included finding a mathematical have much of an idea of how to ad- derivation of the appearance of the sur- dress it. prising “cross tie walls” paerns that Some results have been obtained in form in micromagnetics, and to ex- the very particular case of the sphere plain the distribution of vortices along packing problem in two dimensions, triangular “Abrikosov laices” for min- and perturbations of it, in the works of imizers of the Ginzburg–Landau ener- Charles Radin and Florian eil. Prov- gy functional. In the laer case, as in ing the same type of result in higher di- many problems from quantum chem- mension or for more general optimiza- istry, one observes that nature seems tion problem is a major challenge for to prefer regular or periodic arrange- the fundamental understanding of the ments, in the form of crystalline struc- structure of maer. tures. It remains almost completely Sylvia Serfaty Laboratoire Jacques-Louis Lions Universit/’e Paris VI and Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
[email protected] Saharon Shelah (Jerusalem and Piscataway, N J)* Why are you interested in model theory ply, how to find formulas for ar- (a branch of mathematical logic)? eas of squares, rectangles, trian- gles etc – and the natural sciences , mathemat- looked more aractive.