winter break
CAMK Annual Meeting
Tomasz Miller (Copernicus Center, Jagiellonian University, Cracow)
In the late 19th century, Georg Cantor made a stunning discovery: in mathematics there is not just a single infinity, but an infinite hierarchy of "transfinite numbers." In my talk, I will briefly recall how this "Cantor’s paradise" (as Hilbert called it) is constructed. I will then turn to a more recent attempt to tame infinity, initiated by John H. Conway, who went on to discover an even richer - in a sense "ultimate" - number system: the surreal numbers. This system contains not only Cantor’s transfinites but also their reciprocals, the infinitesimals. I will close by reflecting on a natural question: why study such abstract objects at all?
Simon Murphy (University of Southern Queensland, Australia)
The ages of stars are notoriously difficult to determine, especially for young stars that are still shrouded in dust or surrounded by discs. Here, every Myr matters, as we try to probe the processes of planet formation and stellar composition build-up. If stellar ages are biased, the knock-on effects for exoplanet characterisation are huge, affecting not just demographics, but even the detection probabilities for direct imaging searches. I discuss the various challenges in ascertaining the ages of hot, young stars, and how stellar population synthesis can help us assess whether common tools like stellar isochrones are leading us astray. I will present asteroseismology as an alternative technique capable of achieving better age precision, which approaches 10% for pre-main-sequence stars, before wrapping up with a few ideas on where this research can break new ground.
Arpita Misra (Jagiellonian University, Cracow)
Daniela Turis-Gallo (Universidad de Valparaiso, Chile)
Dominika Król (Harvard Smithonian CfA)
Maciek Wielgus (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, IAA-CSIC, Granada, Hiszpania)
