School of Mathematics

Hydrodynamics and Topology: ICMS meeting in honour of Keith Moffatt's 80th birthday

The 80th birthday on 12th April Professor Keith Moffatt of Cambridge University will be celebrated with a Scottish Topology Seminar "Hydrodynamics and Topology" at the International Centre for Mathematical Sciences 2-6PM on Thursday, 14th May.

2.00-2.50 Gunnar Hornig (Dundee) Magnetic Helicity: applications and generalisations.

2.55-3.45 Etienne Ghys (ENS-Lyon) Is helicity a topological invariant?

3.45-4.15 Tea

4.15-5.05 Michael Proctor (DAMTP, Cambridge) Mean-field Electrodynamics in the nonlinear regime?

5.10-6.00 Keith Moffatt (DAMTP, Cambridge) introduced by Michael Atiyah, Topological jumps in deforming soap films and in vortex dynamics

Keith Moffatt was an undergraduate at the University of Edinburgh from 1953 until 1957, before going on to a distinguished career at the University of Cambridge. Of his University years in Edinburgh, he wrote "The mathematics teaching at Edinburgh University was superb --  A.C. Aitken and W.L.Edge on the Pure side, Nicholas Kemmer, Robin Schlapp and Andrew Nisbet on the Applied.  Aitken dazzled us with computational virtuosity on the blackboard, for which he was famous.  Edge took us walking on the Pentland Hills and further afield, deeming such outdoor exercise to be good for developing geometrical intuition."