Minhyong Kim
김민형
Mathematician and author
Director, International Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Edinburgh
Edmund Whittaker Professor of Mathematical Sciences, University of Edinburgh
Professor of Mathematics, Heriot-Watt University
Faculty Profile at the University of Edinburgh
Artwork by Son Yein
Current Events
3MC+PIMS+ICMS Winter school - Multiscale Modeling: Infectious Diseases, Cancer and Treatments
This Winter School is a part of an initiative aimed at advancing mathematical education and collaboration, with a specific focus on fostering ties between diverse groups and promoting mathematical modelling as a tool to address biomedical challenges, especially within the African context. Participants will gain valuable skills and experience, contributing to the global effort to enhance mathematical competence and diversity.
It will focus on equipping participants, specifically postgraduate students and early-stage researchers, with the vital skills in mathematical modeling and the fundamental mathematical tools essential for advanced study and research. The program will also foster connections between scholars in Mathematical Biology from the participating countries UK, Africa and abroad.
A platform will be provided to facilitate interactions and support among the participants, encouraging a collaborative learning environment. Initiating a dialogue on how mathematical modelling can be applied to real-world biomedical-and by extension socio-economic-problems in Africa will be a specific area of focus. Furthermore, there will be emphasis on promoting the development of mathematical modelling techniques within African educational institutions.
Additionally, this Winter School will foster the exchange of knowledge across international boundaries and will also play a significant role in helping the recruitment or co-supervision of African graduate students by ICMS institutions, thereby working towards improving or building up diversity in Mathematical Science.
Chaotic Flows in Polymer Solutions
Turbulent flows are ubiquitous in everyday life and in engineering or industrial applications. Research in this field is by nature interdisciplinary, as an interplay between numerical simulation, experiment and data analysis is required to obtain sufficient information of the structure and dynamics of such flows and thus their impact in industry and engineering – understanding and achieving drag reduction is one of many examples. As numerical data and analysis techniques provide information not attainable by experiment, the application and development of methods from within Applied Mathematics – in particular computational approaches developed for applied dynamical systems – are central to the field. The meeting will be focussed on the application and development of such methods to a particular type of turbulence that occurs in flows of viscoelastic fluids, in close discussion with experimentalists.
Retreat for Women in Applied Mathematics 2025
RWAM 2025 is a five-day retreat for female applied mathematicians (or people who identify as female) from all career stages (PhD, postdoc, junior or senior faculty), generally working in the field of Mathematical Modelling and Applications. Building on the successes of RWAM 2023 and 2024, the 2025 event will follow the same format with keynote lectures, contributed talks, poster session, round-table discussions, working groups and networking time. The objectives of RWAM 2025 remain the same as those of RWAM 2023 and 2024, namely, to create a sense of community and a unified forum for sharing information about scientific opportunities, funding, teaching and career progression. Prior successes include, but are not limit to, a mentoring scheme, new scientific collaborations, follow-up seminar invitations along with increased visibility for all participants, and especially for early career researchers.
My main preoccupation at the moment is a new project of the ICMS with the name Mathematics for Humanity. It's main goal is to support mathematical activities around the world with potential for direct impact on the betterment of the human condition. A subsidiary goal is to provide a unifying umbrella for many things of this nature that mathematicians are already doing. By providing this unifying framework, I hope the value of such activity is better recognised and that the practioner can enjoy a greater sense of mission. Please look at the webpage linked above and submit proposals for activities. I hope especially to attract new ideas from young mathematicians as well as senior mathematicians interested in running their usual research programmes in parallel with contributions to global welfare.
Article in Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator Science Breakthrough Radar
Workshop on Mathematics and Literature
Lectures on the Mathematical Structure of Language
ICMS Director's Public Lecture: The ABC Mysteries
Multiscale Modeling: Infectious Diseases, Cancer and Treatments
Summary
I am a mathematician working primarily on arithmetic geometry, the study of spaces built out of finitely-generated systems of numbers. My main contribution to mathematics is the discovery of the non-abelian method of Chabauty, a theoretical framework for applying ideas of topology, especially homotopy theory, to the algorithmic resolution of Diophantine equations. I am also interested in mathematical physics, the mathematical structure of matter and spacetime in general, and topological quantum field theory in particular.
I have a keen interest in public engagement. I have given numerous presentations since 2010 at schools, teacher training workshops, and corporate training programmes, as well as 'talk concerts' on a wide range of topics in mathematics and its interface with other domains of inquiry, especially physics and economics. If you are interested in having me at such an event, do not hesitate to contact me. I have published ten books so far written for the general public. My interest in engagement is an important component of the way I've put together this site. I'm trying to make the material accessible and friendly to any curious person, even while providing standard information that might be useful for my colleagues in academia. I hope the style is not off-putting to the latter. However, I haven't anything like the energy and creativity that some of the serious communicators of science are able to put into their website. As a result, I fear that my modest effort here will look silly both to colleagues and to the general public. As an extension of public engagement, I am a consultant for WoongjinThinkbig, one of the oldest educational publishers in Korea. I am doing my best to help them develop educational software.
I work at the International Centre for Mathematical Sciences, a gathering place for mathematical scientists from all over the world, located in the beautiful city of Edinburgh. The city is surrounded by nature, as rugged as can be in a major city, even while it's steeped in history, including intellectual history. It's a real privilege to trace the footsteps of inspiring figures like David Hume, Adam Smith, Mary Somerville, James Clerk Maxwell, and Michael Atiyah on a daily basis. I am also a distinguished professor at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study in the city of Seoul, itself a beautiful place in some similar and some different ways.
Brief Professional Biography
I grew up in Seoul, Korea, studied mathematics at Seoul National University, then received my Ph.D. in Mathematics at Yale University under the direction of Igor Frenkel, Serge Lang, and Barry Mazur (Harvard). I moved on to faculty positions at MIT, Columbia University, the University of Arizona, Purdue University, the Korea Institute for Advanced Study, University College London, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Ewha Womans University, and the University of Oxford, where I was the head of the number theory research group. Most recently before moving to Edinburgh, I was Christopher Zeeman Professor of Algebra, Geometry, and Public Understanding of Mathematics at the University of Warwick.
It is perhaps not so well known that a mathematician's life involves a good deal of travel. In particular, I have held visiting professorships at numerous institutions including the University of Paris, University of Illinois, University of Kyoto, Seoul National University, ICTS Bangalore, and the University of Toronto.
From 'Relative Langlands Duality' by David Ben-Zvi, Yiannis Sakellaridis, and Akshay Venkatesh
What is Mathematics?
The part of physics where experiments are cheap. (V.I. Arnold, On Teaching Mathematics (1997)) [Maame Ama Bainson, a student of mathematical epidemiology and oncology, points out that this is wrong: computing costs for her modelling experiments are very high.]
It appears that mathematics as we know it arises from the nature of our brains and the embodied experience. (G. Lakoff and R. Nunez, Where Mathematics Comes From (2000))
The answer, it appears, is that any argument which is carried out with sufficient precision is mathematical. (D. Gale and L. Shapley, College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage (1962))
If all mathematics disappeared today, physics would be set back exactly one week. (R.P. Feynman, source unknown)
To those who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty, of nature ... If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature, it is necessary to understand the language that she speaks in. (R.P. Feynman, The Character of Physical Law (1965))
Its Applications (M. de Unamuno)