The 54th annual Quebec Mathematics Colloquium will be held at Concordia on November 18.

There will be two main speakers. One is Brian Conrad, of the University of Michigan and a student of Andrew Wiles (of Fermat’s Last Theorem fame), on the proof of the Shimura-Taniyama Conjecture.

The other is Dimitri Korotkin, a recent arrival from Russia to Concordia University. Professor Korotkin was formerly with the Steklov Institute (St. Petersburg), the Institute for Theoretical Physics (Hamburg) and the Max Planck Institute (Potsdam). He is a leading expert in the application of methods of integrable systems to domains of classical and quantum gravity.

There will also be shorter presentations on various subjects, including combinatorics, mathematical physics, probability and statistics, the representation of algebras, analysis and number theory.

Robert Raphael, who is organizing this session, said that these gatherings are held twice a year all over Quebec and at several out-of-province francophone universities. He described it as “almost like a family,” as mathematicians get together to exchange ideas and fellowship. Indeed, Professor Raphael takes pride in the “restaurants” section of his symposium Web site, and suggests it as a handy guide for all Concordians based downtown.

For more information, please consult the Web site http://caillou.math.uqam.ca/~csmq/col54/indexE.html or contact Professor Raphael (raphael @alcor.concordia.ca, 848-3253) or Jane Venettacci (janev@vax2.concordia.ca, 848-3234).