The Faculty of Science at An-Najah Holds a Seminar in Applied Mathematics

On March 14th, the Faculty of Science at An-Najah organized a seminar at the Conferences Room at the Faculty of Science, New Campus in Applied Mathematics. Keynote lecturers were Professor Etienne Ghys, CNRS, Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon in France, and Professor Cedric Villani, University of Lyon and Institute Herri Poincare, as well as Prof. Idris Al-Titi. Attendees included the Faculty’s Dean, Dr. Sulaiman Khalil, members of the faculty staff and students.

At the beginning of the seminar Dr. Khalil welcomed the two professors and praised the type of academic relationship that An-Najah holds with the University of Lyon and called for more academic cooperation with the different higher education institutions in France.

Such cooperation, he explained, includes accepting Palestinian students to pursue their higher studies (Master and PhD in Mathematics and Physics) at French universities, cooperating with French higher education institutions to help in preparing and supporting the PhD in Physics program which An-Najah intends to launch soon, as well as exchanging members of the faculty staff between An-Najah and Lyon.

Two lectures were presented during the seminar. The first one was presented by Professor Ghys in which he spoke about the Butterfly Effect. The Butterfly Effect refers to a phenomenon in nature in which small changes at one place in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere because of the chaos inherent in the dynamics.

The second lecture was titled “Can one read the fate stars in mathematics?” in which Professor Villani spoke about the future of the universe as it known to be one of the oldest problems of mathematical physics. Professor Villani is a Field Medalist 2010 (The Field Medal is equivalent to the Nobel Prize in Mathematics).

The two Mathematicians expressed their admiration by the unique level of scientific development that An-Najah enjoys, especially the Faculty of Science.