Abstract:
The 2005 GFD program was entitled “Fast Times and Fine Scales” with a focus on asymptotic and stochastic modeling
methods that exploit a physical scale separation of some kind. An extremely strong application pool resulted in the
appointment of the unusually large class of eleven GFD Fellows for the summer. The first week consisted of principal
lectures from Joe Keller on waves in fluids, ray methods and a variety of applications. The second week was divided
between Eric Vanden-Eijnden’s lectures on Brownian motion and stochastic diffferential equations, and George
Papanicolaou’s lectures on variational principles and asymptotic methods in homogenization theory. The principal
lectures were particularly well-attended but the lecture room at Walsh Cottage proved up to the task of accommodating
the full audience.
Research lectures by staff and visitors were delivered daily throughout the program addressing topics ranging from
applications of multiscale modeling methods in ocean and atmosphere dynamics, to applications of stochastic methods
in populations dynamics and chemical kinetics, to applications of homogenization theory in materials science and
engineering. The program also included a popular public lecture on the timely subject of tsunamis. And as usual this
summer ended with the Fellows’ reports including two experimental projects and theoretical work on a variety of
problems inspired by the summer’s research theme.
Oliver Bühler and Charlie Doering acted as co-Directors for the summer. Janet Fields, Jeanne Fleming and Penny
Foster provided the administrative backbone for the program. Keith Bradley supplied technical support, and Matt Finn
ran the computer network and graciously helped with the production of the summer’s proceedings volume. As always we
are grateful to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for the use of Walsh Cottage, the perfect setting for the GFD
program.
