Planar algebras, black holes, superconductivity and the mathematics of knots will be hotly debated at the University of Queensland this month.
Three hundred of the world's leading mathematicians and physicists will attend the XIIth International Congress of Mathematical Physics at the University from July 13 to 19.
New Zealand-born Vaughan Jones, professor of mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley, is expected to attract great public interest.
In the mid-1980s, he made a major breakthrough in the mathematical theory of knots, and found unexpected connections with statistical mechanics, which incorporates important sub-divisions relating to superconductivity and phase transitions in lattices.
Knots have taken on additional importance in the biological sciences because they have a role in describing DNA structures.
The finding earned Professor Jones the highest prize in the discipline of mathematics, the Fields Medal, in 1990.
In the mathematical field, the Fields Medal is equivalent in prestige to a Nobel prize (there is no Nobel Prize for mathematics), and is awarded once every four years.
Congress secretary Dr Mark Gould of the University of Queensland's Mathematics Department said Professor Jones would give a free public lecture on knots on Friday, July 18 at the University of Queensland's Abel Smith lecture theatre at St Lucia at 8pm.
Professor Jones had promised a 'personal and rather biased history of the mathematical theory of knots, from Alexander the Great to the present day,' he said.
'Thanks to the elementary nature of some recent theories, this can be done with almost no mathematical background required of the audience,' he said.
Dr Gould said the congress was the triennial meeting of the International Association of Mathematical Physics and would feature outstanding plenary lecturers from British Columbia and Berkeley to Princeton and Paris.
'This is an exciting event for people working in the overlapping disciplines of mathematics and physics,' he said.
'It is a tremendous honour for Australia to be selected as the host nation.'
Chaos theorists will rub shoulders with experts in general relativity at the congress, which includes invitational sessions in fields such as statistical mechanics, integrable models, disordered systems, general relativity and string theory, general quantum field theory, quantum mechanics, quantum chaos and semi-classical limit, statistical hydrodynamics, and operator algebras.
Brisbane Lord Mayor Jim Soorley will host a reception for congress delegates at City Hall on Monday, July 14 at 6pm.
Congress highlights include a concert on Tuesday, July 15 by the University's resident ensemble, Perihelion. The concert will feature a new Kent Farbach piece commissioned by congress organisers and sponsored by a grant from the Australia Council for Arts.
The congress is sponsored by the Universities of Queensland, Adelaide, Melbourne, Melbourne, New England and Australian National University, the Australian Tourist Commission, the Australian Mathematical Society, the Australian Institute of Physics, Ansett Australia, Quality Travel and JAL, the Myer Centre and international professional groups.
For further information about congress activities, contact the University of Queensland Mathematics Department, telephone (07) 3365 3277.
Conference details can be found at the World Wide Web site: http://www.uq.edu.au/~icmp97
Media: Contact Dr Gould (telephone (07) 3365 2424 email: mdg@maths.uq.edu.au), or Professor Tony Bracken (telephone (07) 3365 2311, email ajb@maths.uq.edu.au).
