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Was Sie eine Mathematikerin/einen Mathematiker schon immer fragen wollten - tun Sie es am Tag der offenen Tür am Max-Planck-Institut für Mathematik! Lernen Sie unser Institut kennen und erfahren Sie, aus welchen Ländern die Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler unseres Gästeprogramms kommen. Tauchen Sie bei einem virtuellen Rundgang in M. C. Eschers Bilder ein und versuchen Sie Ihr Glück bei einem Mathequiz. Lernen Sie, wie man Sudokus und den Zauberwürfel in null Komma nichts löst, und sehen Sie, was ein 3D-Drucker alles kann. Lassen Sie sich von einem Mathe-Magier verzaubern und finden Sie heraus, woran unsere preisgekrönten Mathe-Genies gerade arbeiten.

Geometric quantities of a surface, like distance, angle, or area, change when the surface is deformed. Euler discovered a quantity, the Euler characteristic, which remains unchanged. The formula of Gauss-Bonnet, a landmark result of mathematics, relates Euler characteristic with geometry. In the talk, I will present ideas of Descartes, Euler, and Gauss related to this formula.

"Mathematics is not only a solo gig. When two or three mathematicians get together to share their ideas on how to attack a problem, sessions can easily stretch out for hours and even days. The dynamic is not unlike jazz musicians improvising with each spurring the other to go farther than they would go alone." Rob Schneiderman, New York based mathematician, regular guest at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics, and professional Jazz pianist together with John Goldsby (bass) and Hans Dekker (drums) will explore the relations between Jazz & Math in a public concert, which will be followed by a get-together for an open discussion. (Free admission)

The story told in this lecture starts with an innocuous little geometry problem, posed in a September 2006 blog entry by R. Nandakumar, an engineer from Calcutta, India: "Can you cut every polygon into a prescribed number of convex pieces that have equal area and equal perimeter?" This little problem is a "sparrow", tantalizing, not as easy as one could perhaps expect, and Recreational Mathematics: of no practical use.

This Thursday, January 21st at 19:00h, members of the larger MPIM community will give us the honor of an informal musical concert. First, Carmen Rovi (Piano), Matthias Kreck (Cello), and Yael Fregier (Baritone) will play and sing classical pieces by Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, and Wagner. This is followed by a short break and some traditional folk music performed by the MPIM folk group with Tim Ballance (fiddle), Kristian Hodén (button accordeon), Pavel Mnev (flutes), Davide Spriano (electric bass), and Alessandro Valentino (acoustic guitar). Everybody from the math community in Bonn and their families are welcome.

Since ancient times geometric concepts have been used to model astronomical phenomena such as the motion of the planets. In modern times geometry has merged with analysis to provide accurate models of gravitational phenomena involving stars and their planets, black holes and gravitational waves in the context of General Relativity - with the new mathematical insights leading also to progress in the understanding of many other phenomena surrounding us. The lecture describes in a non-technical way how ancient geometric concepts such as the isoperimetric inequality as well as classical concepts from Newtonian physics reappear in the curved space-times of General Relativity.

John L. Heilbron is Professor of History and Vice-Chancellor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley, and Honorary Fellow, Worcester College, Oxford. His talk is drawn from material in and reflections on his recent books, Galileo (2010) and (with Finn Aaserud) Love, literature, and the quantum atom. Niels Bohr's 1913 trilogy revisited (2013), both from Oxford University Press.

This documentary is a celebration of the story of Ramanujan while walking in his footsteps trying to fathom his genius. I will begin with a very short (less than 5 minutes) introduction to the making of the documentary. Then we will watch the documentary; it is about one hour long. Finally, I can (try to) answer any questions the audience might have.

Anges Handwerk and Harrie Willems have made a remarkable documentary about the life and work of Yuri Manin, Emeritus Director at the Max Institute for Mathematics in Bonn, who began his career as a student at Moscow State University in the year of Stalin's death 1953 and whose subsequent professional life reflects the history of mathematics and mathematicians trying to overcome the political constraints of that time. The film will be shown for the first time in Bonn, prior to its publication by Springer in 2012. The directors will be present and available for questions and discussion after the screening.