Registration will be closed at 23:59, 26th Mar., 2010. Those who are not registered may try to walk in by first come first serve basis.

Speaker:
Professor Stephen SMALE
University Distinguished Professor
City University of Hong Kong

Lecture Title:
Problem in the Theory of Intelligence, Telling Cats from Dogs

Abstract:
Noam Chomsky has suggested a genetic route with his “Poverty of Stimulus” for children learning a language.  We follow a different course starting from mathematics of the visual cortex to the geometry of data.

Biography of the Speaker:
In 2007, Professor Stephen Smale was awarded the 2006/7 Wolf Foundation Prize in Mathematics
“for his groundbreaking contributions that have played a fundamental role in shaping differential topology, dynamical systems, mathematical economics, and other subjects in mathematics” (Wolf Foundation).
This is one of the two awards of prestige equatable to a “Nobel Prize in Mathematics”.  The Fields Medal, which enjoys the same standing if not higher, only awards mathematicians under 40.  Professor Smale won both, among other distinctions such as the National Medal of Science.
While there is no further elaboration of “other subjects in mathematics” in the above Wolf Prize’s citation due perhaps to the already long register, the span of Professor Smale’s research spectrum is by any measure beyond impressive if one finds his recent publications cover the foundation of computer science, mathematical theory of learning, language evolution, emergent behaviors, and natural image representations.
Professor Smale was born in 1930, in Flint, Michigan.  He received his mathematics education up to PhD from the University of Michigan and spent most of his academic life in two institutes: the University of California, Berkeley, and the City University of Hong Kong where he is now University Distinguished Professor.

Enquiries:
2609 8446

Faculty of Engineering
The Chinese University of Hong Kong