Foundations of Computational Mathematics
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| Formation | 1995 |
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Chair
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Wolfgang Dahmen |
| Website | http://focm-society.org/ |
Foundations of Computational Mathematics (FoCM) is an international nonprofit organization that supports and promotes research at the interface of mathematics and computation. It fosters interaction among mathematics, computer science, and other areas of computational science through conferences, events and publications.
FoCM aims to explore the relationship between mathematics and computation, focusing both on the search for mathematical solutions to computational problems and computational solutions to mathematical problems. Topics of central interest in the Society include but are not restricted to:
The Society for the Foundations of Computational Mathematics was launched in the Northern summer of 1995, following a month-long AMS–SIAM Summer Seminar in Park City, Utah, which was organized principally by Stephen Smale. That meeting hosted a number of sub-conferences on the frontier of Mathematics and Computation, focusing on many topics from numerical analysis and on the importance of a foundational theory of real number computation. The main thrust was on creating a shared intellectual space for activity bringing together computation and mathematics. During the final week at Michael Shub's behest an informal lunch was arranged where Felipe Cucker, Arieh Iserles, Narendra Karmarkar, James Renegar, Michael Shub and Stephen Smale decided to go ahead and create a permanent entity that would organize periodic conferences covering subjects in the interplay between these two areas. After a discussion, the name Foundations of Computational Mathematics was settled, and Michael Shub was chosen to lead the initiative with a little team formed by himself, Arieh Iserles and James Renegar.
The first FoCM conference took place in Rio de Janeiro and was hosted by IMPA with the support of its then-director Jacob Palis. Several conferences were organized later (see below), bringing together some of the world leading mathematicians and computer scientists, although the society was not formally established as a legal entity until 1999 simultaneously with the creation of the journal Foundations of Computational Mathematics. Ever since, its main activities are its triennial meetings, special semesters and the support of the FoCM journal, as well as general advocacy of the mathematical areas underlying computation.
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