{"id":790,"date":"2014-09-22T01:00:25","date_gmt":"2014-09-22T06:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/?p=790"},"modified":"2014-11-12T11:50:45","modified_gmt":"2014-11-12T17:50:45","slug":"second-heidelberg-laureate-forum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/2014\/09\/22\/second-heidelberg-laureate-forum\/","title":{"rendered":"First Impressions of the Second Heidelberg Laureate Forum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year, I wrote with some envy about the first annual Heidelberg Laureate Forum<\/a>. This year, I’m there! I mean, here! Yes, after several flights and a few train delays, I’m finally in Heidelberg, and if the fog clears and drizzle dissipates, the surroundings will be beautiful!<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A panorama photograph of Heidelberg. Image: Coolgarriv, via Flickr.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Heidelberg Laureate Forum is a\u00a0chance for stodgy old Turing, Abel, Nevalinna, and Fields<\/a> laureates to get an infusion of fresh ideas from the 200 young math and computer science researchers who graciously agreed to attend. Or maybe it’s a chance for 200 fresh-faced, eager young mathematicians and computer scientists to take in some of the wisdom of the laureates who graciously agreed to attend. Either way, it will be a chance for mathematicians and computer scientists to network not only within their respective groups but across the aisle, as it were.<\/p>\n

The opening ceremony for the meeting was Sunday night. I don’t know whether the highlight was the reappearance of the odds-defying\u00a0saxophone quartet<\/a> that John Cook wrote about last year or International Mathematical Union president Ingrid Daubechies’ joke that mathematics is a very old profession, but of course not the<\/em> oldest profession.\u00a0Two themes of the opening comments by organizers\u00a0were about speaking slowly to communicate well and about using our powers for good, especially in the case of computer science, where as we have seen recently (hi NSA, what’s up? Nothing to see here…), computer security can have very serious consequences.\u00a0As Alexander Wolf, president of the Association of Computing Machinery, which awards the Turing Prize, pointed out, these cautions about computer science represent something of a victory: the benefits of computing are so widespread and obvious\u00a0that they are just taken for granted. It is hard to imagine a world without them.<\/p>\n

From the look of the program<\/a>, we are in for a lot of outstanding\u00a0talks this week. Personally, I hope to get\u00a0a better feel for some of the big ideas in computer science from some of the speakers.\u00a0But we all know that a lot of the real benefit of\u00a0a meeting is what happens\u00a0between talks and on excursions.\u00a0I’m looking forward to\u00a0making connections during those in-between times!<\/p>\n

This\u00a0year, the meeting has both a German<\/a> and an Engligh<\/a> blog. I’ll be blogging (in English) while I’m at the meeting, so you can find me over there<\/a>. I might even livetweet a few of the talks, so you can also follow me on Twitter<\/a> if you’re not already. The hashtag for the meeting is #hlf14<\/a>. Tsch\u00fcss!<\/p>\n

This blog post\u00a0originates<\/a> from the official blog of the 2nd\u00a0<\/span>Heidelberg Laureate Forum<\/span><\/a>\u00a0(HLF)\u00a0which takes place in Heidelberg, Germany, September 21 – 26, 2013. 24 Abel, Fields, and Turing Laureates will gather to meet a select group of 200 young researchers.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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Last year, I wrote with some envy about the first annual Heidelberg Laureate Forum. This year, I’m there! I mean, here! Yes, after several flights and a few train delays, I’m finally in Heidelberg, and if the fog clears and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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