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Celebrating Math

Cluster of Excellence MATH+ to Host an Event on July 1 as part of the German-wide event series “The 7 Greatest Mathematical Adventures” / Topic: Millennium Problem “P versus NP”

№ 079/2022 from May 27, 2022

On July 1, the Cluster of Excellence MATH+ is organizing an event in the German-wide series “The 7 Greatest Mathematical Adventures.” The public event on July 1 in the Futurium in Berlin will deal with the famous Millennium Prize Problem “P versus NP.” The problem addresses how quickly a computer can solve tasks of a certain complexity and why the search for an efficient algorithm has not been successful so far. This includes, for example, the traveling salesperson problem, in which a shortest round trip through several places is searched for, but for which no efficient algorithm is known so far. The part of the event from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. is open to the public, and admission is free. In easy-to-understand lectures, MATH+ co-chair Prof. Dr. Martin Skutella from Technische Universität Berlin, Prof. Dr. Kurt Mehlhorn from MPII Saarbrücken, and junior professor Dr. Sarah Wolf from Freie Universität Berlin will convey how current mathematical research works and also explain to laypeople why mathematics is fascinating and can be a great adventure. Under the slogan “We celebrate mathematics!” there is a varied program with lectures and exciting activities around the problem “P versus NP.” The event is aimed at high school students, journalists, mathematicians, and all other interested parties.

The morning program in the Futurium will be accompanied by examples of mathematical application in the form of a small exhibition, where you can experience art made by artificial intelligence and get signed copies of the comic “Ida und der Mathe-Agent oder Eine Geschichte vom Modellieren der Mobilität von Morgen.”

From 10:40 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., there will be a special session for journalists on the topic “Mathematics – Algorithms – Truth.” In addition to the significance of the Millennium Problems for mathematics, this session will also deal with fundamental questions of finding the truth in mathematics. The session will be moderated by Dr. Anna Maria Hartkopf from MIP.labor, an ideas workshop for science journalism on mathematics, computer science, and physics. Registration via the event website is required to attend.

On the afternoon of July 1, the MATH+/BMS community will gather in the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW) for its first face-to-face meeting since the outbreak of the pandemic. Beginning at 2:15 p.m. there will be an expert talk on the millennium problem “P versus NP” by Prof. Dr. Irit Dinur from the Weizmann Institute of Science. Mathematicians and science journalists are also invited to attend.

The expert talk will be accompanied by a seminar “What is ...?,” which is being organized by students of the Berlin Mathematical School (BMS). Afterward, the BMS alumni and MATH+ dissertation prize winners will be recognized with a certificate ceremony. This part of the event is not open to the public.

The German-wide event series “The 7 Greatest Mathematical Adventures” will run from the spring through the fall. The events will focus on seven fundamental mathematical problems, the Millennium Problems. In 2000, the Clay Mathematics Institute published a list of seven problems considered to be the central problems of mathematics and offered prize money of one million US dollars for the solution of each. With one exception, the Poincaré Conjecture, they remain unsolved to this day. The initiators of the series are Die Junge Akademie and the German Mathematical Association (DMV). The events are being sponsored by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Various mathematical research institutions in Germany are organizing events devoted to one of these mathematical problems. MATH+ is presenting talks and activities addressing “P versus NP.”

MATH+ is a Cluster of Excellence within the framework of the German Excellence Strategy and a joint institution of the three major Berlin universities – Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, and Technische Universität Berlin – as well as the Weierstraß Institute for Applied Analysis and Stochastics (WIAS) and the Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB).

More Information about the Morning and Afternoon Programs:

For more information about the German-wide event series, see https://7abenteuer.diejungeakademie.de/ or #7Abenteuer.

The Berlin Mathematics Research Center MATH+ is a cross-institutional and interdisciplinary Cluster of Excellence for application-driven mathematical research with social relevance. Emphasis is placed on outstanding training for young people across the entire spectrum of mathematics as well as application-oriented mathematics with a focus on data-driven modeling, simulation, optimization, and innovative approaches. MATH+ is a joint project of the three major universities in Berlin – Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Technische Universität Berlin – as well as the Weierstrass Institute for Applied Analysis and Stochastics (WIAS) and the Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB). Since January 1, 2019, MATH+ has been funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) as a Cluster of Excellence under Germany’s Excellence Strategy.

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