Earlier Highlights (16)

In April 2012, I visited the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli-IPMU) at the University of Tokyo, where I gave a seminar on The Program in Interdisciplinary Studies at IAS, Princeton.

In March 2012, I gave the annual William Witherspoon Lecture in Theology and Science at the Center for Theological Inquiry in Princeton.

Also in March, Jacob Bourjaily gave a talk on The Geometry of Quantum Field Theory in my Program in Interdisciplinary Studies, in preparation for a TED talk on Transforming the Universe

<- In February 2012, my Program in Interdisciplinary Studies organized a short series of weekly lectures by current members. Here are the slides from Monica Manolescu, about Ways of (Not) Knowing: Cartography, Art, Literature, and Philip Ording, about Variations on a Proof: Mathematical Exercises in Style.

In January 2012, I organized a one-day workshop, MODEST-11a, together with Jun Makino, at Tokyo Institute for Technology. The title was New Mathematical Techniques for High Performance Computing. A central discussion point was: how to simulate star clusters with millions of stars on supercomputers with millions of cores?

<- In December 2011, I participated as one of the organizers in the MODEST-11 workshop at the Lorentz Center in Leiden, Holland, a very well organized dedicated Dutch national center where every week a different scientific meeting is being held.

In October 2011, I gave a lecture, followed by a discussion, on Exploring the Use of Virtual Worlds for Interdisciplinary Research, in a mixed virtual/real event organized at Exeter University in Real Life and in the European University campus in Second Life. It was a fun way to exchange experiences in the use of virtual worlds for education and research.

<- In August 2011, I gave the Introductory talk for the MODEST-10d workshop entitled "High-Level Languages for Hugely Parallel Astrophysics Simulations: Dialogues between Computer Scientists and (Astro)physicists", that Jun Makino and I organized at the Center for Planetary Sciences at Kobe University.

In July 2011, Ataru Tanikawa, Jun Makino and I finished a preprint titled Unexpected Formation Modes of the First Hard Binary in Core Collapse. In this paper, which is accepted for publication in New Astronomy, for the first time we show how exactly the first hard binary is formed in core collapse of a collisional N-body system, such as a star cluster.

<- In June 2011, the K computer in Kobe, Japan, became the fastest supercomputer in the world, even though it was only 80% completed. I would visit the K computer center later in the summer, in Aug/Sep. As far as I know, it is the only supercomputer that has a train station named after it: K computer mae, which means "the station in front of the K computer".

Also in June, we held an interdisciplinary workshop Adventures of Categories at the Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences at Kyoto University, for which I was a member of the scientific organizing committee.

In May 2011, I visited my collaborator Hayato Saigo at his new work place, the Nagahama Institute of Bio-Science and Technology, a recently established modern research institute, located north of Kyoto, near Maibara.