When Reason Produces Monsters While It Is Wide Awake - Michalik Distinguished Lecture

We are pleased to announce that our 2025 Michalik Lecture will be given by Professor Camillo De Lellis. The doors for the event will open at 3 PM. Following the talk a reception will be held in the Frick Fine Arts Cloister after the talk has concluded until 5:30 PM.

Title: When Reason Produces Monsters While It Is Wide Awake

Abstract:

"I turn with terror and horror from this lamentable scourge”. This sentence was uttered by a very famous mathematician towards the end of the XIX century, while referring to the work of another very famous colleague. The object which generated such virulent reaction is actually nowadays rather well accepted, in fact it is often mentioned in basic textbooks on differential calculus. In this lecture I will argue that it is just the first of a long series of counterintuitive mathematical constructions, which all share some common aspects. I will touch upon famous examples of the fifties, sixties, eighties and nineties of the last century, all looking like bizarre games of mathematicians made to defy common sense. However I will finally turn to some discoveries of the last few years, which confirm an old hypothesis of a theoretical physicist, recipient of the Nobel prize in chemistry.