Mathematical Colloquia

The Mathematical Colloquia is a distinguished series of talks with a long tradition. The first Colloquium was held in 1987 and the original motivation was to enrich the mathematical life in Prague by inviting some of the key mathematicians and computer scientists of our time. The Colloquia were established by Jaroslav Nešetřil and originally organized by the Department of Applied Mathematics (KAM) under the name KAM Mathematical Colloquia. Now they are run jointly by the Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science Institute of Charles University (CSI/IUUK); Jaroslav Nešetřil remains the main organizer. At a frequency of about 2-3 Colloquia per year the following lectures were presented:

  1. L. Lovasz
  2. P. Erdos
  3. R. Tijdeman
  4. A. Ambrosetti
  5. F. Hirzebruch
  6. H. Bauer
  7. V. Chvatal
  8. B. Korte
  9. J. Seidel
  10. V. G. Kac
  11. G. Choquet
  12. D. J. A. Welsh
  13. J. G. Thompson
  14. H. Furstenberg
  15. S. Cook
  16. K. Mehlhorn
  17. S. Todorcevic
  18. J. J. Kohn
  19. C. Thomassen
  20. A. Borel
  21. N. Alon
  22. Victor Klee - Shapes Of The Future, September 26, 1995
  23. Joel Spencer - Asymptotic Packing, October 5, 1995
  24. Joram Lindenstrauss - Non Linear Geometric Theory Of Banach Spaces, October 19, 1995
  25. Andrzej Schinzel - The Mahler Measure Of Polynomials In Several Variables, March 15, 1996
  26. Peter J. Cameron - Sum-Free Sets, May 28, 1996
  27. M. Laczkovich
  28. Benoit Mandelbrot - Sum-Free Sets, November 21, 1996
  29. David Preiss - Lipschitzovska Zobrazeni, March 27, 1997
  30. Jan Nekovar - Hodnoty Zeta-Funkci, May 13, 1997
  31. Volker Strassen - Algebra And Complexity, December 4, 1997
  32. Jennifer Chayes - Birth Of The Infinite Cluster: Finite-Size Scaling In Percolation, April 7, 1998
  33. Bernhard Banaschewski - Propositional Theories, Frames And Fuzzy Algebra, February 9, 1999
  34. Louis H. Kauffman - Introduction To Quantum Link Invariants, March 16, 1999
  35. Gilles Pisier - Similarity Problems For Hilbert Space Operators And Related Algebras, June 4, 1999
  36. Aleksander Pelczynski - Sobolev Spaces As Banach Spaces, May 12, 2000
  37. Claude Berge - Mathe'Matique Et Litte'Rature, December 8, 2000
  38. Vera T. Sos - Order, Disorder And What Is In Between?, December 15, 2000
  39. Martin Groetschel - Frequency Assignment In Mobile Phone Systems, February 1, 2001
  40. Rainer E. Burkard - Selected Topics On Assignment Problems, March 15, 2001
  41. Herbert S. Wilf - Search Engines, Eigenvectors, And Chromatic Numbers, May 4, 2001
  42. Michael Waterman - A New Approach To Dna Sequence Assembly, June 1, 2001
  43. Micha Sharir - Recent Developments In The Theory Of Arrangements Of Surfaces, May 22, 2001
  44. Ernst Specker - Modular Counting, March 5, 2002
  45. Beno Eckmann - 4-Manifolds And Groups-Some Aspects Of A Partnership, April 23, 2002
  46. Theodore A. Slaman - Aspects Of The Turing Jump, March 6, 2003
  47. Xavier G. Viennot - Combinatorics For Quantum Gravity, April 10, 2003
  48. Cheryl Praeger - Computers In Algebra: First Came Answers And Then More Questions, June 19, 2003
  49. Keith Ball - Entropy Growth For Sums Of Independent Random Variables, December 16, 2003
  50. Anatoly Vershik - Universality And Randomness In The Theory Of Graphs And Metric Spaces, March 8, 2005
  51. Michael Aschbacher - Finite Simple Groups, May 24, 2004
  52. Michele Emmer - Mathematics And Culture, January 13, 2005
  53. Ehud Friedgut - Some Applications Of Fourier Analysis In Combinatorics, February 2, 2005
  54. Ben Green - Arithmetic Progressions In The Primes, February 9, 2005
  55. Miklos Simonovits - Turan Problems, Ramsey Problems, Simple And Random-Looking Extremal Structures, February 23, 2005
  56. Klaus Schmidt - Dynamical Systems Arising From Algebra, May 26, 2005
  57. N. Linial
  58. Gil Kalai - Convexity, Convex Polytopes And Combinatorics, February 22, 2006
  59. Endre Zemeredi - Long Arithmetic Progressions In Subset Sums, March 10, 2006
  60. Miroslav Fiedler - Topics From Combinatorial Matrix Theory, May 11, 2006
  61. Dominique Foata - Statistical Distributions On Weyl Groups, May 17, 2006
  62. Henryk Iwaniec - Recent Progress In Prime Number Theory, June 6, 2006
  63. Bruce Reed - Graph Colouring Via The Probabilistic Method, November 23, 2006
  64. Alain Louveau - Borel And Analytic Equivalence Relations, January 23, 2007
  65. Vitaly Bergelson - Ergodic Theorems Along Polynomials: From Combinatorial Applications To Challenges For Physicists, January 25, 2007
  66. John Friedlander - Introduction To Sieve Methods, April 24, 2007
  67. Avi Wigderson - The Power And Weakness Of Randomness In Computation, April 27, 2007
  68. Vojtech Rodl - On The Regularity Lemma For Hypergraphs And Its Applications, April 27, 2007
  69. Juan Luis Vázquez - The Theories Of Nonlinear Diffusion, November 20, 2008
  70. Slawomir Solecki - Extreme Amenability, Ramsey Theorems, And Concentration Of Measure, January 19, 2010
  71. Ralph Mckenzie - A Combustible Mix: Finite Algebras, Graphs, And The Csp-Dichotomy Conjecture, March 11, 2010
  72. Andrew Odlyzko - Providing Security With Insecure Systems, May 31, 2010
  73. Ronald Graham - The Combinatorics Of Solving Linear Equations, June 16, 2010
  74. Balázs Szegedy - The Regularity Lemma And Beyond, June 16, 2010
  75. Mark V. Sapir - Geometry Of Groups And Computational Complexity, June 17, 2010
  76. Benny Sudakov - Extremal Graph Theory And Its Applications, March 14, 2011
  77. Michel Waldschmidt - Transcendence Of Periods, November 10, 2011
  78. Venkatesan Guruswami - List Error-Correction Algorithms: A Survey, November 22, 2011
  79. Tomasz Luczak - Graph Thresholds, December 2, 2011
  80. Michel L. Balinski - Don't Vote!: Judge, February 10, 2012
  81. Gregory L. Cherlin - Model Theory And Finite Groups, July 26, 2012
  82. Béla Bollobás - Bootstrap Percolation - Recent Probabilistic Results, January 8, 2013
  83. Michael Krivelevich - Intelligence Vs Randomness: The Power Of Choices, March 27, 2013
  84. Vijay V. Vazirani - New (Practical) Complementary Pivot Algorithms For Market Equilibria, June 5, 2013
  85. Ryan Williams - Recent Progress In Non-Uniform Circuit Complexity, June 21, 2013
  86. Michael Aizenman - Disorder Effects On Quantum Spectra And Dynamics, August 22, 2013
  87. Gregory F. Lawler - Random Fractals Arising From Statistical Physics, August 27, 2013
  88. Damien Gaboriau - Measured Group Theory, Percolation And Non-Amenability, December 12, 2013
  89. Michel Mendes - Exponential Sums, Geometry And Diffraction Of Light, April 3, 2014
  90. Ivar Ekeland - On The Variational Principle, November 7, 2014
  91. David Brydges - Quantum Field Theory In Terms Of Random Walk, November 29, 2014
  92. Peter Van Emde Boas - The History Of The Van Emde Boas Trees, November 18, 2014
  93. Harald Helfgott - The Ternary Goldbach Conjecture, December 19, 2014
  94. Emmanuel Candes - Robust Principal Component Analysis?, February 4, 2015
  95. Kaoru Ono - Lagrangian Floer Theory, February 17, 2015
  96. Moshe Vardi - The Sat Revolution: Solving, Sampling, And Counting, September 16, 2015 (video)
  97. Benjamin Weiss - Dynamical Systems And Ramsey Theory, October 27, 2016 (video)
  98. Carl Pomerance - Random Number Theory, November 8, 2016 (video)
  99. Jacob Fox - Arithmetic Regularity, Removal, And Progressions, 22. November 2016 (video)
  100. Jaroslav Nešetřil - Matematika A Umění, March 16, 2016 (video)
  101. Achim Jung - On A Combinatorial Problem Arising From Denotational Semantics, May 9, 2017 (video)
  102. Jean-Bernard Lasserre - Moments & Positive Polynomials For Optimization And More, May 16, 2017 (video)
  103. Van Vu - Real Roots Of Random Polynomials, June 27, 2017 (video)
  104. Boris Zilber - On Logic, Geometry And Transcendental Number Theory, October 23, 2017 (video)
  105. Moni Naor - White-Box Vs. Black-Box Search Problems: A Cryptographic Perspective, December 1, 2017 (video)
  106. Christos Papadimitriou - A Computer Scientist Thinks About The Brain, June 11, 2018
  107. Vladimir Sverak - Is The Navier--Stokes Equation Complete As A Mathematical Model?, June 12, 2018
  108. Robert J. Aumann - Strategic Information Theory, October 8, 2018
  109. Mikkel Thorup - Deterministic Edge Connectivity In Near-Linear Time, December 5, 2018
  110. Uri Feige - On Ramsey Multiplicities And Half-Ramsey Graphs, December 5, 2018
  111. Mario Szegedy - The Art And Craft Of Quantum Circuit Design, December 5, 2018
  112. Marc Noy - Logic And Random Graphs, December 5, 2018
  113. Christian Krattenthaler And Emil Viklický - Mathematics And Music, December 12, 2019
  114. Sergei K. Lando - The Unreasonable Effectiveness Of Geometry In Combinatorial Problems, February 18, 2020
  115. ---
  116. Alexander Schrijver - On Three Easy (To Understand) Graph Problems, March 5, 2020
  117. Miklós Abért - Groups, Graph Limits And Locally Symmetric Spaces, November 25, 2021 (video)
  118. Zdeněk Dvořák - Structural Aspects Of Sublinear Separators, March 5, 2020
  119. Ramamohan Paturi - Introduction To Fine-Grained Complexity, June 24, 2022 (video)
  120. Michael Arbib - From Neural Networks And Automata To Architecture, November 3, 2021 (video)
  121. Ehud Hrushovski - Elementary Ramsey Theory, Approximate Subgroups and a Model-Theoretic Galois Group, January 5,  2023
  122. Alexander David Scott - Graphs of large chromatic number, February 2, 2023
  123. William Cook - The Traveling Salesman Problem, April 6, 2023
  124. Luca Trevisan - Sparse Approximations of Graphs, Hypergraphs and Matrices, October 2, 2023
  125. Andrew Granville - What is the role proof plays in pure mathematical research and will AI change that?, November 9, 2023

The lectures are widely advertised and usually attract a large audience not only from Prague but also from Bohemia, Moravia and even Slovakia. The past Colloquium Lectures covered most of the branches of mathematics (mathematical analysis, geometry, algebra, number theory, combinatorics, set theory, functional analysis, mathematical physics, probability and theoretical computer science and applications).

It is believed that some of the talks were extraordinary. Some of the talks were organized with other Prague institutions (Mathematical Institute of Charles University, Mathematical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Institute for Theoretical Studies of Charles University) or with University of Ostrava. The organization of the Colloquia were made possible by generous support of KAM and our University and Czech grants.