IUPAP C18 - Report to meeting of commission chairs, Mumbai, October 2004

The flagship conference of C18 (type A) is the International Congress in Mathematical Physics. The last such congress took place in Lisbon in the summer of 2003 and was attended by scientists from Europe, developing countries, the Americas and Asia. The local organizer was Professor Zambrini of the Lisbon University. The list of plenary speakers included women. The Poincare prize was awarded at the conference. A bid for the next ICMP was made by Prague and Rio and a subsequent vote by the IAMP executive committee decided in favor of Rio; this meeting will be held there in the summer of 2006.

The conference on group theory methods (type B) took place in Cocoyoc, Mexico, in the summer of 2004. The meeting was successful and included female participants as well as those from developing countries. The local committee, headed by Professor Wolf, encountered some problems with the Mexican authorities regarding visas for individuals from certain countries. A letter from the organizers regarding this issue was passed to the IUPAP directorate.

The commission met during the ICMP in Lisbon, otherwise the business was conducted by electronic mail. During its meeting it recommended to support the conference on random matrix theory and arithmetic aspects of quantum chaos in Cambridge, June 2004, proposed by Professor Mezzadri, as a type C meeting. It also created a work group to prepare a proposal about IUPAP awards in mathematical physics.

The commission also decided about its associated members. After a discussion a vote was taken which lead to appointment of J. Ball (as a representative of IMU), A.H. Chamseddine, R. Wald, and R. Weder.