Inaugural Hermann Weyl Distinguished Lectures

Lecture 1

Title: String Theory and its Applications to Mathematics and Physics

Abstract: In the last few decades, we have discovered several new connections between mathematics and physics through the study of string theory. In this talk I will review some of these connections, focusing on topological string theory, mirror symmetry, large N duality, and the Mathieu moonshine.  I will also discuss a new perspective that is emerging at the interface between information theory, geometry, and physics.  The talk is intended for senior undergraduate students as well as professional mathematicians in all fields.

Lecture 2

Title: Two Exact Results on 2d CFTs

Abstract: Exact statements about conformal field theories can be used to identify and derive constraints on quantum gravity theories. I will present a couple of new results on conformal field theory in two dimensions motivated by gravitational theories in three dimensions. This is a technical talk intended for mathematical and theoretical physicists.

Biosketch:

Hirosi Ooguri（大栗 博司）

After completing his graduate studies in two years, Ooguri became a tenured faculty member of the University of Tokyo in 1986. He was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and was appointed an assistant professor at the University of Chicago before receiving his Ph.D. in 1989. After four years as an associate professor at Kyoto University, he returned to the United States in 1994 as a full professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley.

In 2000, Ooguri moved to Caltech, where he is the inaugural holder of the Fred Kavli Chair. He served for five years as Deputy Chair of the Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy, the equivalent of an associate dean of the physical sciences. He led the establishment of the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics, was named its Founding Director in 2014, and is serving his third term.

Ooguri was a Founding Principal Investigator of the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe at the University of Tokyo for fifteen years and served as its Director from 2018 to 2023. In 2024, the University of Tokyo honored him with the title of University Professor.

Ooguri was a General Member of the Aspen Center for Physics for twenty years and served as Scientific Secretary, a Trustee, President, and Chair of the Board of Trustees. He was elected an Honorary Trustee for Life in 2023.

Ooguri has received the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon from the Emperor of Japan, the Eisenbud Prize for Mathematics and Physics from the American Mathematical Society, the Simons Investigator Award from the Simons Foundation, the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Frontiers of Science Award at the International Congress of Basic Science in China, the Hamburg Prize and the Humboldt Research Award in Germany, the Louis Michel Chair at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHÉS) in France, the Benjamin Lee Distinguished Professorship in Korea, and the Nishina Memorial Prize and the Chunichi Cultural Award in Japan. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Mathematical Society.

Ooguri's popular science books have sold over 300,000 copies in Japan, and one of them won the Kodansha Prize for Science Books. He also supervised a science movie, which was selected for the Best Educational Production Award from the International Planetarium Society and has been translated into six languages.

More information is available at his website: http://ooguri.caltech.edu/

Registration： https://www.wjx.top/vm/YdJcqOZ.aspx#

Recordings: https://archive.ymsc.tsinghua.edu.cn/pacm_lecture?html=Hermann_Weyl_Distinguished_Lectures.html