Prof László Babai Speaks at ICM’18 About Graph Isomorphism
On August 3, George and Elizabeth Yovovich Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science László Babai gave an invited lecture titled “Global Symmetry from Local Information: The Graph Isomorphism problem” at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM'18) in Rio de Janeiro.
The lecture covered his breakthrough 2015 discovery of a new algorithm for determining whether two graphs (networks of nodes and links) are identical — a landmark advance in computational complexity theory. The work received widespread academic and media attention, where one scientist called it “potentially the most important theoretical computer science advance in more than a decade.”
You can watch video of Babai’s ICM lecture below:
Babai presented in a joint session of two sections of the Congress, “Combinatorics” and “Mathematical Aspects of Computer Science.” Organized by the International Mathematical Union, the quadrennial ICMs are the most prestigious forums of current research in mathematics; an invitation to speak at an ICM is a coveted honor. This was the third ICM lecture in Babai's career; previously, he was an invited section speaker at ICM'90 in Kyoto and a plenary speaker at ICM'94 in Zurich.
The Rio presentation was part of a hectic conference schedule this summer for Babai, who gave a total 13 invited lectures at 8 conferences in 7 countries.
