Journal of Mathematical Physics at the
XVI International Congress on Mathematical Physics

The sixteenth International Congress on Mathematical Physics was held in Prague, Czech Republic 3–8 August, 2009 and attracted approximately 600 attendees from around the globe. The Congress is held only once every three years, so this is a uniquely important meeting in this field. Topical sessions included: mechanics and dynamical systems; statistical mechanics; partial differential equations; both many-body and nonrelativistic quantum mechanics; string theory and quantum gravity; quantum field theory; and new frontiers in mathematical physics. There was also a set of sixteen plenary lectures covering a diverse range of topics such as "Changing Views of Quantum Field Theory" by Steven Weinberg, "Kinetic Transport in Crystals" by Jens Marklof, and "Traffic and the Visual Perception of Space" by Petr Šeba. Congress attendees were also treated to a mid-week concert in Prague’s gothic St. Vitus cathedral, a special congress dinner, and a string quartet performance on the final evening of the Congress.

AIP took the opportunity to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Journal of Mathematical Physics (JMP) with an exhibit at the Congress that featured information about the journal and a free gift to attendees of a USB memory drive with more than 50 seminal articles from JMP’s 50-year history, selected by JMP Editor Bruno Nachtergaele. (Professor Nachtergaele also delivered an invited talk “Lieb-Robinson Bounds for Quantum Lattice Dynamics and Applications” as part of the Congress’ topical session on Non-equilibrium Statistical Mechanics.) Attendees were uniformly grateful for the set of articles and generally expressed their high regard for the journal – with many stating that JMP is one of their favorite journals.

JMP editors and board members. Left to right: R. Benguria, A. Klein, Y. Kawahigashi, D. Petz, J. Froehlich, A. Soshnikov, B. Nachtergaele, M. Salmhoffer