Simons Lecture Series
The Department of Mathematics annually presents the Simons Lecture Series to celebrate the most exciting mathematical work by the very best mathematicians of our time. The format of this lecture series has evolved since its inception in 1999, and now includes two weeks of lectures— one in pure mathematics and the other in applied mathematics— given each spring.
We are grateful to our good friend Jim Simons for providing the financial backing of these lectures.
2025 Lectures
Maryna Viazovska (Pure Mathematics)
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
April 29, April 30, May 1, 2025
4:30pm, Room 2-190
Reception: 4:00pm, 2-290
The Sphere Packing Problem
-
Lecture 1:
General overview -
Lecture 2:
Random sphere packings with symmetries -
Lecture 3:
Ideal lattice packings and subconvexity bounds
Thomas Vidick (Applied Mathematics)
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
May 12-14, 2025
4:30pm, Room 2-190
Reception: 4:00pm, 2-290
Surprises in Quantum Complexity Theory
-
Lecture 1:
Some complexity challenges from quantum information -
Lecture 2:
Entanglement, interactive proofs, and approximability -
Lecture 3:
Entanglement, error-correcting codes, and proofs
Simons Lectures Over the Years
2025: Maryna Viazovska, Thomas Vidick
2024: Elon Lindenstrauss, Lenka Zdeborova
2022: Bhargav Bhatt, Cynthia Dwork
2020: (postponed) Bhargav Bhatt, Cynthia Dwork
2019: June Huh, Alexander Barvinok
2018: Stephen Boyd, Sylvia Serfaty
2017: Yuval Peres, Martin Hairer
2016: Michael P. Brenner, Maryam Mirzakhani (cancelled due to illness)
2015: Leslie Greengard, Laure Saint-Raymond
2014: Daniel Spielman, Ben Green
2013: Emmanuel Candès, Raphaël Rouquier
2012: Alexander Lubotzky, László Lovász
2011: Steven Strogatz, Manjul Bhargava
2010: Peter Winkler, Andrei Okounkov
2009: Étienne Ghys, Robert Shapire
2008: Peter Teichner, John Conway
2007: Terry Tao, David Donoho
2006: Akshay Venkatesh, Yves Couder
2005: Noga Alon, Nigel Hitchin
2004: Wendelin Werner
2003: Grigory Perelman
2002: Robert MacPherson
2001 Fall: Peter Shor
2001 Spring: Laurent Lafforgue