Past Special Lecture

Floer theory, which mimics an infinite dimensional Morse approach to the study of critical points of smooth functions, appeared as an attempt to prove Arnold conjecture. The theory is more or less well understood in some compact cases.

Non-compact symplectic manifolds can sometimes be compactified as singular symplectic manifolds where the symplectic form "blows up" along a hypersurface in a controlled way (b^m-symplectic manifolds). In natural examples in Celestial mechanics such as the 3-body problem, these compactifications are given by regularization transformations à la Moser/Mc Gehee etc.

I will use the theory of b^m-symplectic/b^m-contact manifolds (introduced by Scott, Guillemin-Miranda Weitsman, and Miranda-Oms) as a guinea pig to propose ways to extend the study of Hamiltonian/Reeb Dynamics to singular symplectic/contact manifolds. This, in particular, yields new results for non-compact symplectic manifolds and for special (but, yet, meaningful) classes of Poisson manifolds.

Inspiration comes from several results extending the Weinstein conjecture to the context of b^m-contact manifolds and its connection to the study of escape orbits in Celestial mechanics and Fluid Dynamics. Those examples motivate a model for (singular) Floer homology.

I'll describe the motivating examples/results and some ideas to attack the general questions.

The Hardy Lectureship was founded in 1967 in memory of G.H. Hardy (LMS President 1926-1928 & 1939-1941). The Hardy Lectureship is a lecture tour of the UK by a mathematician with a high reputation in research.

Throughout a product development project, many decisions must be made. These include whether to start, stop, continue, or re-direct a project based on the learnings of the project team. Some of these decisions are related to the risk of achieving certain product performance attributes and they are often based on experimental observations in the laboratory or in field applications of early prototypes. Sometimes, these observations provide sufficient insight but often a significant uncertainty remains. Mathematical simulation can provide deeper insight into the mechanisms, may indicate limiting parameters and transport steps, and allows exploration of novel prototypes without actually making them. This talk will illustrate how Mathematics have been used to inform project development projects and their guiding decisions at WL Gore by describing examples from three very different applications.

This talk is a personal how-to (and how-not-to) manual for doing Maths with industry, or indeed with government. The Maths element is essential but lots of other skills and activities are equally necessary. Examples: problem elicitation; understanding the environmental constraints; power analysis; understanding world-views and aligning personal motivations; and finally, understanding the wider systems in which the Maths element will sit. These issues have been discussed for some time in the management science community, where their generic umbrella name is Problem Structuring Methods (PSMs).