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Simons Foundation Lectures

Simons Foundation

The Simons Foundation’s mission is to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences.

Co-founded in New York City by Jim and Marilyn Simons, the foundation exists to support basic — or discovery-driven — scientific research undertaken in the pursuit of understanding the phenomena of our world.

The Simons Foundation’s support of science takes two forms: We support research by making grants to individual investigators and their projects through academic institutions, and, with the launch of the Flatiron Institute in 2016, we now conduct scientific research in-house, supporting teams of top computational scientists.

Links:
Simons Foundation: https://www.simonsfoundation.org
Flatiron Institute: https://www.simonsfoundation.org/flatiron/
Simons Foundation Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SimonsFoundation
Flatiron Institute Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FlatironInstitute/
Simons Foundation Twitter: https://twitter.com/simonsfdn
Flatiron Institute Twitter: https://twitter.com/flatironinst

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  • 134 episodes
  • daily
  • Avg 59 min
  • English

Episodes 134

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  • Tuesday · 1 hr

    Lisa Fauci - Hydrodynamically-coupled oscillators in biofluids (December 17, 2019)

    Respiratory cilia that transport mucus in the lungs, spermatozoa that collectively move through the female reproductive tract, paddling appendages that propel a crawfish, and fish swimming in a school are all examples of oscillators that exert force on a surrounding fluid. Do the synchronous or phase-shifted periodic motions that we observe arise due to hydrodynamic coupling? We will discuss experiments and models of the self-organized pattern of beating flagella and cilia — from minimal models of colloidal particles driven by optical traps to more detailed models that include dynamics of the molecular motors driving the motion. We will also consider internal coupled oscillators that model neural signaling in a model of an undulatory swimmer with sensory feedback and examine the emergent swimming behavior of the coupled fluid-neural-muscle-body system. A long-term goal of this research is to investigate the relation of spinal chord injuries to movement in a very simple system. More details: https://www.simonsfoundation.org/event/ccb-colloquium-lisa-fauci/ Uploaded 13-01-20 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Tuesday · 1 hr

    Subir Sachdev - Ultra-Spooky Action at a Distance (January 22, 2019)

    Ultra-Spooky Action at a Distance: From Quantum Materials in the Lab to Black Holes The strangest feature of quantum theory was dubbed “spooky action at a distance” by Albert Einstein. Today, scientists have convincing evidence that two quantum particles far apart can entangle with each other such that the observation of one can instantaneously determine the state of the other. Uploaded 24-01-20 In this lecture, Subir Sachdev will describe how this quantum feature is playing a central role in many modern developments in physics. Quantum entanglement can occur on a macroscopic scale with trillions of electrons, leading to new forms of ‘ultra-quantum matter’ with properties of technological importance. In high-temperature superconductors, such as YBa2Cu3O7, there appears to be a ‘quantum critical point’ whose entanglement structure is being explored by experiment and theory. Related entanglement structures arise across black hole horizons, and recent advances have shed new light on Stephen Hawking’s information paradox. Sachdev will use simple models of entanglement to describe these mutually beneficial developments across different fields of physics. More details: https://www.simonsfoundation.org/event/ultra-spooky-action-at-a-distance-from-quantum-materials-in-the-lab-to-black-holes/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Tuesday · 54 min

    Laura Sommovigo and Shivam Pandey - From Simulations to Surveys... (Sept. 18, 2025)

    From Simulations to Surveys: Building Realistic Mock Catalogs for Galaxies and the CMB Uploaded 17-10-25 2025 Simons Collaboration on Learning the Universe Annual Meeting (September 18-19, 2025) https://www.simonsfoundation.org/event/simons-collaboration-on-learning-the-universe-annual-meeting-2025/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Tuesday · 1 hr

    Jason Lerch - Autism, Autisms, or Neurodevelopmental Disorders? (January 29, 2020)

    If we had known back then what we know now, would we have the disorder names and categories that we do? In this lecture, Jason Lerch will explore the question: What do modern ways of looking at brains and genes tell us about autism — or autisms — and its relationship to attention deficit disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and other related disorders of brain development? More details: https://www.simonsfoundation.org/event/autism-autisms-or-neurodevelopmental-disorders/ Uploaded 31-01-20 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Tuesday · 50 min

    ICM 2026 Invited Section Lecture - Emanuel Milman

    Multi-Bubble Isoperimetric Problems The classical isoperimetric inequality in Euclidean space Rn states that among all sets of prescribed volume, the Euclidean ball (uniquely) minimizes surface area, explaining why a single soap bubble is always a round sphere. One may similarly consider isoperimetric problems on more general metric-measure spaces, such as on the n-sphere Sn and on n-dimensional Gaussian space Gn (i.e. Rn endowed with the standard Gaussian measure). More generally, we consider the multi-bubble isoperimetric problem, in which one prescribes the volumes of k greater then= 2 bubbles and minimizes their total surface area -– as any mutual interface will only be counted once, the bubbles are thus incentivized to clump together. The double-bubble problem (case k=2) on R3 was resolved by Hutchings, Morgan, Ritoré and Ros in 2000. We survey recent advancements in the characterization of multi-bubble isoperimetric minimizers on Gn, Rn and Sn, as well as the stability of soap bubble partitions. Based on joint works with Joe Neeman and Botong Xu. There will be many pictures! Uploaded 05-10-26 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Tuesday · 57 min

    Laurence Perreault-Levasseur - Learning how to Accelerate the Universe (Sept. 18 2025)

    With introduction to the collaboration by Greg Bryan. 2025 Simons Collaboration on Learning the Universe Annual Meeting (September 18-19, 2025) https://www.simonsfoundation.org/event/simons-collaboration-on-learning-the-universe-annual-meeting-2025/ Uploaded 17-10-25 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Tuesday · 55 min

    Philip Mocz - The Art of Scientific Computing (for Astrophysics) (January 30, 2020)

    Physical equations have their own sets of symmetries, invariants, and conserved quantities. In addition, in astrophysical contexts, systems often have many-orders-of-magnitude dynamic range and may experience supersonic speeds or discontinuities. In developing accurate, robust, and efficient scientific computing methods for high-performance simulations, one is faced with the challenge of how to discretize the equations to represent them on a computer and still maintain as many of the physical properties of the equations as possible (which typically leads to reduced numerical error and more reliable code behavior). Uploaded 04-02-20 In this talk, I will describe a variety of modern numerical techniques which I have developed and implemented in my research. These include (1) spectral methods that solve fuzzy dark matter and maintain the unitary nature of the equations, (2) a smoothed-particle hydrodynamics formulation of quantum mechanics, (3) moving-mesh finite volume methods for magnetohydrodynamics that maintain the divergence-free condition on the magnetic field and have Galilean-invariant truncation errors, and (4) collisionless (Vlasov- Poisson) dynamics on an integer lattice that obeys the Poincare recurrence theorem. This talk is meant to highlight the creativity that is involved in inventing new numerical methods, and demonstrate their usage in astrophysical applications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Tuesday · 46 min

    Brian Metzger - How Gravitational Waves Pointed Us to the Origin of Gold (February 5, 2020)

    Two summers ago, the LIGO interferometers detected gravitational waves from coalescing neutron stars for the first time. (Neutron stars are the dense cores left over when massive stars explode at the end of their lives). This discovery initiated a frenzied search for a visual ‘afterglow’ to the merger using dozens of telescopes on the ground and in space. Within hours, fading blue light, unlike that ever seen before, was discovered from a galaxy 100 million light-years away. Uploaded 10-02-20 In this lecture, Brian Metzger will discuss the monumental importance of the first detection of gravitational waves from coalescing neutron stars. The August 2017 discovery initiated a frenzied search for a visual ‘afterglow’ to the merger using dozens of telescopes on the ground and in space. Within hours, fading blue light, unlike anything we’ve ever seen before, was discovered from a galaxy 100 million light-years away. From the debris of the merger, he and other scientists witnessed directly for the first time the creation of the heaviest elements in the universe, such as gold, silver and platinum. More details: https://www.simonsfoundation.org/event/how-gravitational-waves-pointed-us-to-the-origin-of-gold/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Tuesday · 1 hr 8 min

    Liang Dai - A New Window Into the Universe (February 4, 2020)

    Detection of chirping gravitational waves (GWs) at ground-based laser interferometry observatories LIGO and Virgo have uncovered a population of compact binary mergers. Forthcoming observing runs with upgraded sensitivity and more observatories joining the network will tremendously increase the number of source systems, which will shed light on their astrophysical origin and enable to exploit those events as cosmological probes. I will present independent efforts by the IAS group to analyze the publicly available LIGO/Virgo data and report newly discovered GW events in addition to what experimental collaborations have reported. I will highlight several original and crucial data analysis methodologies we have developed for template matching, noise characterization and parameter estimation. In addition, I will give outlook on gravitational lensing of cosmological GW sources as expected from forthcoming observations and envisage its applications. I will explain our new findings of how wave propagation effects, measurable with GWs but unfeasible with usual electromagnetic sources, can allow extraction of unique information to reconstruct the lens or to probe non-luminous sub-galactic dark matter structures, thereby deepening our understanding of the matter distribution in the Universe. More details: https://www.simonsfoundation.org/event/cca-special-seminar-liang-dai/ Uploaded 13-02-20 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Showing 101–120 of 134 episodes