Speaker: Antonio Córdoba, Emeritus Professor of Mathematical Analysis at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) and Associate Member of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (ICMAT)
Introduced by: José María Martell, Director of ICMAT
Date and time: 28 September 2021, 19:00
Venue: Residencia de Estudiantes CSIC (c/Pinar 21, Madrid). Prior registration is required for the event at the following link.
Broadcast: Portal La Edad de Plata
Abstract: “What properties would a planar set of very small area have, within which it is possible to move an oriented segment until it reverses its position?” This curious question was posed by mathematician Soichi Kakeya in 1917 and has since become a central topic in contemporary mathematical analysis. In this talk, the speaker will present the question and its ramifications for a general audience.
About the speaker
Antonio Córdoba (Puente Tocinos, Murcia, 1949) is an Emeritus Professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM). Between 2016 and 2019 he was Director of ICMAT, of which he has been a member since its foundation, now as an associate researcher. He holds a degree from the Complutense University of Madrid (1971) and a PhD from the University of Chicago (1974), supervised by Fields Medalist Charles Fefferman. Córdoba has held professorships at Princeton, Chicago, and Minnesota universities and has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, USA.
In 2011 he received the Julio Rey Pastor National Award for Mathematics and Communication Sciences for “his original, profound, and fundamental contributions in different fields of mathematics, particularly in Fourier analysis and partial differential equations and their applications in fluid mechanics.” Since 2016, he has also been an Honorary Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Region of Murcia, Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Murcia, and recipient of the Madrid Royal Academy of Sciences Award. In 2021 he was awarded the Medal of the Royal Spanish Mathematical Society. He is the author of more than 100 research articles, as well as several books, essays, popular science articles, and has supervised 13 doctoral theses.