Exploring the connections between arithmetic and geometric properties of algebraic varieties has been the object of much fruitful study for a long time, especially in the case of curves. The aim of the Summer School and Conference on "Higher Dimensional Varieties and Rational Points" held in Budapest, Hungary during September 2001 was to bring together students and experts from the arithmetic and geometric sides of algebraic geometry in order to get a better understanding of the current problems, interactions and advances in higher dimension. The lecture series and conference lectures assembled in this volume give a comprehensive introduction to students and researchers in algebraic geometry and in related fields to the main ideas of this rapidly developing area.
The book is accessible to anyone with a minimum knowledge of mathematics. It is supplemented with an essay on the history of Hungary in the twentieth century and biographies of those mathematicians who are no longer active. A list of all persons referred to in the chapters concludes the volume.
The volume is recommended to experienced specialists as well as to young researchers and students.
The recent volume contains high level surveys on these topics with authors mostly being invited speakers for the conference "Horizons of Combinatorics" held in Balatonalmadi, Hungary in 2006. The collection gives a very good overview of recent trends and results in a large part of combinatorics and related topics, and offers an interesting reading for experienced specialists as well as to young researchers and students.
The theory of normal surface singularities is a distinguished part of analytic or algebraic geometry with several important results, its own technical machinery, and several open problems. Recently several connections were established with low dimensional topology, symplectic geometry and theory of Stein fillings. This created an intense mathematical activity with spectacular bridges between the two areas. The theory of deformation of singularities is the key object in these connections.
The topics covered include classical subjects such as extremal graph theory, coding theory, design theory, applications of linear algebra and combinatorial optimization, as well as recent trends such as extensions of graph limits, online or statistical versions of classical combinatorial problems, and new methods of derandomization.
László Lovász is one of the pioneers in the interplay between discrete and continuous mathematics, and is a master at establishing unexpected connections, “building bridges” between seemingly distant fields. His invariably elegant and powerful ideas have produced new subfields in many areas, and his outstanding scientific work has defined and shaped many research directions in the last 50 years.
The 14 contributions presented in this volume, all of which are connected to László Lovász's areas of research, offer an excellent overview of the state of the art of combinatorics and related topics and will be of interest to experienced specialists as well as young researchers.