The Gauss Lecture of the German Mathematical Society (DMV) is coming to Bochum and gives all those interested in mathematics the opportunity to experience lectures by renowned mathematicians live.
The German Mathematical Society (DMV) and the Faculty of Mathematics at Ruhr-Universität Bochum are inviting everyone with an interest in mathematics and space travel to this event on October 29, 2025.
Highlights include the Gauss Lecture by Helmut Hofer and a lecture by James L. Green, both of whom will use the example of space travel to show how mathematics can be inspired by other disciplines and pave the way to new horizons with their solutions to problems.
The event will be accompanied by music from Ivan Habernal and his jazz quartet.
With the Gauss Lectures, the German Mathematical Society offers an overview lecture with renowned experts twice a year. The topics of the two lectures in Bochum are closely linked, with the speakers describing the connection between mathematics and space travel as follows:
The German-American mathematician is a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, USA. From 1989-1993 he was a professor at the Faculty of Mathematics at Ruhr University Bochum.
His discoveries and methods are used by researchers all over the world: Helmut Hofer is considered the founder of so-called symplectic topology, a field of research that combines mathematics and physics and helps to better understand structures and movements in complex spaces - such as planetary orbits.
The symplectic geometer Andreas Floer, in his short life (1956-1991), made seminal contributions that continue to reverberate through mathematics and physics. Aimed at a broad mathematically curious audience, "Floer's Jungle" describes the historical development of basic mathematical ideas.
Queen Dido’s problem (814 BC) of maximizing area enclosed by a given perimeter---an optimization problem---is the first instance of a variational problem.
Over the centuries it became clear that interesting variational problems are everywhere; mathematicians developed many ideas to deal with such problems, culminating in Floer’s breakthrough.
This lecture gives a glimpse of what doing mathematics looks and feels like---the messy, thrilling, often overwhelming process---and how the people who do it live, interact, rejoice, despair.
The space physicist worked for NASA for over 40 years: Here he developed and managed the Space Physics Analysis Network, which provided scientists with access to data, and held management positions in the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC), Space Science Data Operations Office and Science Proposal Support Office before being appointed NASA's Chief Scientist.
Under him, the Planetary Science Division successfully executed many missions, including sending probes to the Moon (Grail A and B), Pluto (New Horizon), Mercury (Messenger) and Jupiter (Juno), and landing the Mars Science Laboratory and Curiosity rover on Mars.
In his lecture "The Search for Life Beyond Earth" , Green reports on expeditions to Mars.
