DYNAMICS, TOPOLOGY, COMPLEXITY, AI, BIOLOGY, AND MINERALS
SMALE 95: A Conference in Honor of Professor Steve Smale's 95th birthday
July 21 - 22, 2025
Calvin Lab Auditorium, Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, Berkeley, CA
July 21 - 22, 2025
Calvin Lab Auditorium, Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, Berkeley, CA
This two day workshop will celebrate Steve Smale on his 95th birthday by covering topics relating to some of his astonishing contributions to the world of mathematics and to the world of mineral collecting.
Steve’s research is astonishing for its breadth and depth: from differential topology and “turning the sphere inside out”, to dynamical systems and finding the “horseshoe” on the beaches of Rio, to solving the Poincare conjecture for dimensions > 4 leading to the Fields medal, to economics and complexity theory, learning theory, language evolution and flocking, analyzing high dimensional data, and his current obsession with the Kuramoto model to understand the emergence of synchronization, the origins of life itself.
Steve is as well known in the mineral collectors’ world as he is in the mathematical world, his mineral collection is described as ranking among the finest in the world.
Morse-Smale system
Smale Horseshoe map
Smale-Williams solenoid
DATE: July 21 - 22, 2025
LOCATION: Calvin Lab Auditorium, Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, Berkeley, CA