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Macau, 11-14
January 2000
Mathematics
occupies a crucial and unique role in the human societies and represents a
strategic key in the development of the whole mankind. The ability to compute,
related to the power of technology and to the ability of social organisation,
and the geometrical understanding of space-time, that is the physical world and
its natural patterns, show the scientific and cultural role of Mathematics in
the history of Civilisation and in the future development of the Information
Society.
With the aim of
celebrating this theme, the first international conference held in the World
Mathematical Year 2000 was organised by a Portuguese-Chinese committee, chaired
by Iu Vai Pan, Rector of the University of Macau that hosted the meeting. The
international scientific committee, chaired by J.-L. Lions former IMU
President, selected a number of invited speakers and three main topics for the
round tables on Mathematics, History and Culture, Technology and Development
and Computers and Information Society, respectively.
Some of the main
aspects of the conference subject were illustrated, from an historical
perspective, by Wu Wen-Tsun (Beijing) and Hsiang Wu-Yi (Hong-Kong) with
tentative comparisons of the mathematical achievements in ancient Chinese and
ancient Greece, by Luis Saraiva (Lisboa) with an overview of the growing use of
mathematical techniques during the Age of Discoveries with a reference to the
Portuguese seafarers and scientist of the 15th and 16th centuries and their
contributions, and by Qi Minyou (Wuhan) that described the Chinese translation
of the Euclid's "Elements" initiated in the beginning of the 17th
century with the aid of M.Ricci. The choice of the city of Macau for this
conference honours its significant historical role as a bridge of commercial
and cultural exchanges between the East and Western civilisations, since the beginning
of the Portuguese presence in 1557, and its future continuation after the
return to China the 20 December 1999.
Partial topics of
contemporary mathematics were illustrated by Constantine Dafermos (Providence),
that surveyed aspects of the theory of partial differential equations, over the
past century, highlighting the close interaction with physics and technology,
by Irene Fonseca (Pittsburgh) that referred new developments in the calculus of
variations and current issues in phase transitions and image segmentation in
computer vision, by Jean Mawin (Louvain) that treated spectral theory and its
role in functional analysis and non-linear problems in theoretical physics, and
by Alfio Quarteroni (Lausanne and Milano) that illustrated the increasing importance
of mathematical models in life sciences with the example of analysis of cardiovascular
diseases.
The development
of research in mathematics in several countries and how socio-economic factors
favour or hinder it, was examined by M.N. Narashimhan (Bombay and Trieste), the
role of numerical and non-numerical tools in the modelling of technological
processes was analysed by E.R. de Arantes e Oliveira (Lisboa) and several
aspects of the cross-fertilisation between computer science and mathematics,
including examples related to fundamental data structures and database
algorithms, computational geometry and number theory, or communication
protocols, were illustrated by Philippe Flajolet (Paris).
The overall
outcome of this conference will appear in book form and has contributed not
only to highlight significant aspects of the contents and meaning of
Mathematics as a driving force in human progress, but also to show the role of
the contribution that Mathematics had played and will continue to play in
History as a major factor for the development of an increasingly global world
and civilisation.
José Francisco
Rodrigues (Director of the Centro de Matematica e Aplicacoes Fundamentais and Professor of Mathematics at the University of
Lisbon)