Participant Testimonials
This workshop was one of the most inspiring ones that I ever attended. The seemingly diverse range of topics are indeed all tightly knitted together, and I think a beautiful big tapestry is being woven right at this moment. Listening to physicists Bouchard and Klemm, and number theorists Rodriguez-Villegas and Stienstra, and talking to Zagier, I found a hint that I have been searching some time. I need to sit down and think through it, but it looks very promising. I was also immensely impressed by the talks of Brown and Walcher. Bouchard and I will be organizing our own workshop later this fall in your institute. The topics we have chosen are getting a lot of attention and excitement now. The enthusiasm is increasing. I'm so glad to be able to attend the last week's workshop, where I received inspiration and excitement. Thank you for providing this great opportunities to the world!
Mathematics, University of California, Davis
This was a fantastic workshop, with some very good talks. I particularly enjoyed having Prof Zagier in the audience, who always asked pertinent questions and made the speakers explain their work better. I also had a number of very useful conversations with Prof Zagier which I think will move my research forward in interesting ways, in particular in the search for finding modular forms in the noncommutative DT series of the local projective plane. Discussions on this subject with Prof Rodriguez Villegas were also very useful. At the meeting, I also had very good discussions with Prof Doran about one of my PhD students' work, including discussing a job offer to this student from Prof Doran.
The workshop was a huge success. We indeed worked very hard with six lectures from 9:30am til 9:30pm, lectures were so interesting and nobody complained about the heavy schedule. We really felt that the barrier between mathematics and physics is coming down and both camps now find the common language. Modular forms occupy the central roles in mathematics, but they appear frequently in string theory landscape, and we would really like to understand conceptual reasons why modular (automorhic) forms play such important roles in physics. Many participants urged me to apply for the squeal to this workshop at BIRS in two years time. I plan to do so. This past workshop was partially dedicated to Don Zagier for his 60st birthday. Thank you very much.
