Scientific Report of the CMS 2002 Summer Meeting
Université Laval, Québec
The CMS 2002 Summer Meeting was held at Université Laval on June 13, 14, 15, 2002, with a
public lecture on June 12. It attracted 409 registered participants, which made it the most attended
meeting after the CMS 2000 Winter Meeting held in Toronto. We believe that the quality of the
scientific programmes and the large number of symposia contributed to the success of this meeting.
A special lecture was given by Robert P. Langlands (IAS) a few hours before U. Laval gave him
(during the CMS banquet) a honoris causa doctorate.
A public lecture given by Jean-Marie De Koninck (U. Laval) attracted a large audience. This
was an audio video show during which Jean-Marie De Koninck used infography to explain some
elementary notions like Richter scale, decibels, probabilities, the number pi The use of a short
video featuring Jean-Marie De Koninck explaining some mathematics to two bar pillars was one
of the best punches.
The CMS Jeffery-Williams lecture was given by Edwin Perkins (UBC), and the CMS Krieger-
Nelson lecture, by Priscilla Greenwood (UBC, Arizona State U.).
The plenary lectures were given by
- David W. Hendersen (Cornell U.) : Mathematics Education
- Nikolai Nikolski (U. Bordeaux), Steklov Inst.) : Analysis
- Christophe Rentenauer (UQAM) : Combinatorics
- Paul D. Seymour (Princeton U.) : Graph Theory
- Isadore M. Singer (MIT) : Index Theory
A huge pressure was put on the lecturers' shoulders as to be accessible to all mathematicians. To
quote I.M. Singer, "the first minutes of the lecture should be accessible to my landlord".
Eleven symposia were also organized in the following fields listed below with the names of the organizers :
- Analysis : Thomas Ransford (U. Laval)
- Arithmetic Algebraic Geometry : Kumar Murty (U. Toronto) and Pramathanath Sastry
(U. Toronto)
- Associative Algebras : Ibrahim Assem (U. Sherbrooke) and François Huard (Bishop's U.)
- Category Theory : Robert Paré (Dalhousie U.)
- Combinatorics : Pierre Leroux (UQAM), Sylvie Corteel (CNRS and UQAM) and
Cédric Chauve (UQAM)
- Cryptography : Hugh Williams (U. Calgary) and Douglas Stinson (U. Waterloo)
- Differential Geometry : Jingyi Chen (UBC)
- Dynamical Systems : Michael Radin (RIT)
- Graph Theory : Brian Alspach (U. Regina)
- Mathematics Education : Frédéric Gourdeau (U. Laval) and Bernard R. Hodgson (U. Laval)
- Mathematics of Finance : Hassan Manouzi (U. Laval)
- Number Theory : Amir Akbary (U. Lethbridge) and Omar Kihel (U. Lethbridge)
- Probability Theory : Donald Dawson (Carleton U.) and Gordon Slade (UBC)
- Universal Algebra : Jennifer Hyndman (UNBC) and Shelly Wismath (U. Lethbridge)
- Contributed Papers : Norbert Lacroix (U. Laval) and Claude Levesque (U. Laval)
Inside the Contributed Papers session, there was a graduate students session (supported by
ISM) in which graduate students were invited to deliver short lectures on their work in
progress.
It goes without saying that the beauty of the city of Québec played a positive rôle in attracting
people to that meeting. There were many opportunities for mathematicians to exchange. Café
Van Houtte provided free coffee during the whole meeting and made available their official
technical machines to make excellent coffee : we only had to hire students to make it. Pepsi
provided free Pepsi-Cola. Coffee, juice and doughnuts were available all day long.
It is more and more difficult to hold a CMS Meeting on a university campus, but
mathematicians appreciated the opportunity of having plenty of blackboards and counting on
coffee and doughnuts at will.
Finally, it is my pleasure to acknowledge the financial supporters of the meeting :
- Université Laval
- Faculté des Sciences et de Génie
- Département de mathématiques et de statistique
- The National Programme Committee : a joint funding body of the Centre de recherches
mathématiques, The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, and The
Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences
- CICMA Centre Interuniversitaire en Calcul Mathématique Algébrique
- LaCIM Laboratoire de combinatoire et d'informatique mathématique
- ISM Institut des sciences mathématiques
- Caisse populaire Desjardins de l'Université Laval
- iCORE Alberta Informatics Circle of Research Excellence
- Number Theory Foundation
- Pepsi-Cola
- Café Van Houtte
- Rogers Communication
Claude Levesque
Meeting Director
