John Hamal Hubbard

John Hamal Hubbard: Interview at Cirm
Interview date: 24/09/2021 at Cirm
Realization/Interview/Post production: Stéphanie Vareilles
Camera operator: Guillaume Hennenfent
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Questions/Chapters:
1. John Hubbard can you first describe your research areas? 00:19
2. Why do you do mathematics ? What made you choose math? 03:50
3. Could you describe your first « Eureka moment » or the most important? 05:47
4. What was the first thing you did at that moment? 09:47
5. You invented with Adrien Douady the modern complex dynamics in the 80s, can you tell us about this collaboration? 10:34
6. How has this subject evolved in 40 years? Is it still active today? 24:10
7. Are you proud to listen to the presentations of your mathematical 'grandchildren' this week at Cirm? 22:43
8. You are now immortal… 25:41
9. You come from Cornell University but you have worked for a long time in Marseille. What is your view of these two mathematical places? 25:58
10. You know Cirm well, can you tell us the importance of this place for the national and international mathematical community ? 34:11
11. You gave a talk at Cirm in 2003 about Thurston's work on surfaces, after the famous Bouillabaisse. This talk had a huge impact... We are now talking about 'Bouillabaisse surfaces'. Can you refresh our memory? 37:17
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John Hamal Hubbard gave a recorded talk at CIRM in November 2021, during the meeting 'Advancing Bridges in Complex Dynamics' organized by
Anna Miriam Benini, Kostiantyn Drach, Dzmitry Dudko, Mikhail; Hlushchanka and Dierk Schleicher.
Dates: 20/09/2021 - 24/09/2021
The video is available here :
Hubbard, John H. (2021). Introduction to Thurston's theorems. CIRM. Audiovisual resource. doi:10.24350/CIRM.V.19812603
URI: dx.doi.org/10.2...
Research:
Differential equations are the primary means of constructing mathematical models of real systems, and understanding their behavior is the main contribution a mathematician can make to applications. John Hamal Hubbard is interested in understanding the behavior of differential equations and their close relatives: iterative systems. In particular, he is interested in seeing how these systems behave in the complex domain, in large part because complex analysis provides new and powerful techniques for solving these problems.
The availability of powerful computers and computer graphics has changed the way this type of research is done. In the course of studying iterative systems as simple as quadratic polynomials, amazing pictures emerge, more as artifacts to be studied than as man-made objects. He believes 'that this type of experimental mathematics will become a major trend'.