线上地址：

Zoom Meeting ID: 871 9722 7356   Passcode: YMSC

主讲人介绍：

Jürgen Jost

Director, Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.

External faculty, Santa Fe Institute for the Sciences of Complexity, USA.

Member German National Academy Leopoldina, Academy of Science and Literature Mainz, Saxonian Academy of Science.

Interdisciplinary research in Mathematics, Theoretical Physics, Biology and Neuroscience, Social Science, History and Philosophy of Science.

More than 20 scientific monographs and 500 scientific publications.

Advisor of more than 50 PhD students and about 100 postdocs.

Many scientific collaborations in China.

讲座提要：

The calculus of variations was founded by Euler, building upon the work of Leibnz, Jacob and Johann Bernoulli and others, and even earlier,  the invention of the pendulum clock by Huygens and Fermat's principle for the shortest path of light rays. It is also connected with the Principle of Least Action which led to the most famous controversy of the 18th century, involving not only Euler, but also Maupertuis,Voltaire and the Prussian King Frederic the Great. It is a fascinating story with a puzzle, still unsolved today,  about a letter, perhaps by Leibniz, but possibly forged.