Another study group is left behind with memories that will last forever. We all have learned many things from this study group as well:
Now, we know that math gets more involved with the nature around us and the search for new technology to make our lives better. This may involve the search for the reasons behind the failure of wind tribune, or degradation of agrochemicals on farm lands, or periodicity, if any, of hurricane paths, or diagnosis of received signals to see where they came from and what platforms they came from, or last but not least, even the search for a chair that is right for all!
They were all reasonable problems that led to reasonable discussions and suggestions. Not all the ideas won, but what was presented in the Friday morning was summary that almost all agreed on.
At the end, Dave had highlighted the calendar of future European study groups and asked the host(s) to come forward and say a few words about their organizations. Paul mentioned about the study group to be held in Denmark and welcomed all that would be attending. Two researchers from Poland emphasized the low rates of academic labor in Poland and suggested that companies may consider outsourcing through Poland.
Many thanks to Dave and his team for the perfect organization. He may not have thought of volcanic ash clouds, but he managed to minimize the discomfort of stranded attendees, including myself, by extending all his remaining resources.
The chair of International Congress of Mathematics, Hyderabad, India, 2010, in reply to the criticism of having a congress of such a huge size, says that “mathematicians are already lonely in their work, so this would be a good chance for them to get to know each other, and through the panel discussions, make them aware of the role of mathematics around us, in particular, in industry”.
Luckily, we applied mathematicians have many such occasions to get together, not only with our colleagues but also with the people from real industrial fields. To this end, I believe that the study group initive is a perfect one. It has a unifying theme, encouraging attendance from all nationalities, with problems from organizing country in practice, but not restricted to. Yet, I believe that the name tags attached to the study groups seem to contradict the unifying theme of the study groups, and it seems more and more evident that something has to be done to preserve its international structure, where the country it is held in should only be the host for the attendees and proposer of the problems.
I am not much into what the study group in Turkey is to be called, but what I am worried about is that such a distinction of European and non-European types naturally leads to discomfort among the delegates, as happened at the very end of the current study group in Warwick.
On behalf of the organizing committee, I would like to welcome all the participants to contribute to the study group to be held in Trabzon, Turkey on October 4-8th and enjoy the beautiful scenes around Trabzon, a city on the ancient Silk Road, hoping that no volcanic ash clouds or other unexpected phenomenon would interrupt their travel plans.
Sincerely yours,
Prof. Dr. Erhan Coskun,
Department of Mathematics,
TR-61080, Trabzon, Turkey.
erhan@ktu.edu.tr
