Category Archives: Banff International Research Station

Tell me about El CASA

Once again, I had to perform the unpleasant annual task of writing to more than 120 colleagues and their co-applicants all over the world to inform them that their proposals to run a research workshop at the Banff International Research … Continue reading

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Why do I have the best job in the world

Just imagine if you receive a Valentine’s card every day of every week of every one of the last 10 years. OK! not the loving and lusting kind, but the feel good and appreciative type. “Dear BIRS Director, The attached paper, `Byzantine … Continue reading

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Will BIRS bring CIFAR and the mathematical sciences together?

My inbox started filling up at an unusual speed. The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) had just announced a partnership with The Banff Centre (TBC). “The two institutions are teaming up to create a physical home for CIFAR, with the … Continue reading

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In memory of Hugh C. Morris

“It is with great sadness that I write to inform you that in the early morning of December 23, my beloved father, and a man whom I know you knew very well, passed away.”  That was Sue informing me yesterday … Continue reading

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NSERC, Math, Stats, Innovation and all that jazz

Last weekend, representatives of Canada’s mathematical and statistical sciences community presented NSERC’s President, Suzanne Fortier, with a “Long Range Plan.” Entitled Solutions for a Complex Age, the report – commissioned by NSERC – is the result of two years of consultations and deliberations under … Continue reading

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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to salute the “Mathematics of Planet Earth Initiative”

Marc Garneau, our astronaut MP, who saw from outer space how beautiful, fragile and precious our planet was, didn’t do it. Ted Hsu, our Physicist MP, who witnessed its launch last week-end in Montreal, didn’t talk about it. Kennedy Stewart, Official … Continue reading

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Blame it on BIRS!

Where have you been? How come you haven’t been blogging lately, wrote a “Piece of Mind” loyalist. Why weren’t you at the PDE seminar, a colleague inquired. “On attend ton papier avec impatience,” wrote the editor of a special volume three … Continue reading

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Another milestone in scientific communication

The Banff International Research Station (BIRS) has announced that its new physical meeting space at the beautiful TransCanada Pipelines Pavilion in Banff Canada,  is now accessible to the scientific community in virtual space, via live video streaming and high quality video … Continue reading

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My name is “Small Number” and I was born in Banff, Alberta

I am not a character from a Stanley Kubrick movie. I am “Small Number” and it was exactly on November 22d of the Year 2009, that I was born in the Canadian Rockies at the intersection of three glacial valleys at a … Continue reading

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Telling a Gaussian distribution curve from a Faustian one

“Thank you so much for this opportunity for a non-mathematician to be part of the BIRS community”, wrote Alice Major. It doesn’t happen often that an illiterate mathematician gets an email from a Poet Laureate. Major was writing about her … Continue reading

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The gentle giant … of Mathematics

Every mathematician knows that John Willard Milnor is the stuff of legend. But on March 30, 2003, I realized that the legend of John Milnor had spilled out, already a long time ago,  from our rarefied world community of research … Continue reading

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The Banff International Research Station

… for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery (BIRS) is moving to a new home at the Banff Centre, Banff, Alberta. The TransCanada Pipelines Pavilion will be totally dedicated to BIRS scientific activities.

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