当物理预测先于数学证明

（转自2006年国际数学家大会官方网站）

Plenary Lecture: Oded Schramm
When physics gets ahead of mathematics
Nuclear reactions, living organisms, sociological studies… For many years physicists have used predictions to describe the behavior of these systems. Only recently have mathematical proofs been found for these predictions. In his plenary lecture at the ICM2006, Oded Schramm will discuss various open problems, some of which have been selected to illustrate achievements in physics that have yet to be understood mathematically.

Schramm will speak about random systems in the plane, and about how to understand their behaviour. One example of a random system is the so-called percolation. Percolation analyses the movement of a fluid in a porous material. For oil and natural gas, for instance, theoretical results in this area have helped to improve productivity in the exploitation of both these resources.

Although some of the systems studied by professor Schramm are well defined mathematically, he points out that "often arguments provided by physics cannot be translated into mathematical arguments that make sense".

Oded Schramm was born in Jerusalem in 1961. After graduating in mathematics at the Hebrew University, he moved to the United States to do his doctorate at Princeton University. Since 1999 he has been employed at Microsoft Research. Schramm has received such important prizes as the Clay Research Award in 2002, or the Henri Poincaré Prize in 2003.

Speaker: Oded Schramm

Title: Random, Conformally Invariant Scaling Limits in 2 Dimensions

Date: Wednesday, 30 of August, 11:45-12:45

ICM2006 scientific program: http://www.icm2006.org/scientificprogram/plenarylectures/