Special Workshop Honoring Jim Simons

Special Workshop Honoring Jim Simons
Thursday, April 30, 2026

SCIENTIFIC TALKS
Simonyi Hall 101 | 11:00 a.m.
Otis Chodosh, Stanford University
Bernstein’s Problem and Regularity of Area-minimizing Hypersurfaces

Chodosh will describe some old and new work related to Jim Simons’s seminal paper “Minimal varieties in Riemannian manifolds.” In particular, he will describe the relation to Bernstein’s problem on minimal graphs as well as partial/generic regularity of area-minimizing hypersurfaces.

Simonyi Hall 101 | 2:00 p.m.
Richard Schoen, Stanford University
Stability Theory for Minimal Submanifolds

While the most dramatic and direct consequence of the 1968 paper by Jim Simons concerned the regularity of area minimizing hypersurfaces, it also introduced a systematic study of the second variation of volume and used it to show the instability of low dimensional minimal cones. Stable minimal submanifolds (and those of bounded Morse index) form a class between the stationary and area minimizers, and it is of great interest to understand their geometric and analytic properties. There has been a robust theory developed in codimension one, but much less is known in higher codimension. We will survey this theory and some of its applications to Riemannian geometry and describe some current directions.

PUBLIC LECTURE
Wolfensohn Hall | 5:00 p.m.
Camillo De Lellis, IBM von Neumann Professor, Institute for Advanced Study
Breaking the Bubble: From the Brachistochrone to the Simons Cone

From the fastest path down a ramp to the form of a soap film, the quest to find nature's most efficient shapes has driven centuries of mathematical discovery. This lecture will trace the history of the calculus of variations, translating its most important concepts into everyday terms. The journey culminates with Jim Simons' groundbreaking paper on minimal cones, which showed that the familiar physical rules of everyday bubbles dramatically break down in higher dimensions and paved the way for the ultimate resolution of a decades-old mathematical mystery.

To register for the public lecture, click HERE.

Registration Form

Special Workshop Honoring Jim Simons—April 30, 2026

First Name

Last Name

Affiliation

School Affiliation

Bernstein’s Problem and Regularity of Area-minimizing Hypersurfaces

11:00 A.M. | Simonyi HALL 101

I will attend

I will not attend

Stability theory for minimal submanifolds

2:00 P.M. | SIMonyi HALL 101

I will attend

I will not attend

To register for the public lecture click here.

Date & Time

April 30, 2026 | 11:00am

Add to calendar 04/30/2026 11:00 Special Workshop Honoring Jim Simons use-title More: https://www.ias.edu/events/2026-jim-simons-workshop SPECIAL WORKSHOP HONORING JIM SIMONS THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 2026 SCIENTIFIC TALKS SIMONYI HALL 101 | 11:00 A.M. Otis Chodosh, Stanford University _Bernstein’s Problem and Regularity of Area-minimizing Hypersurfaces_ Chodosh will describe some old and new work related to Jim Simons’s seminal paper “Minimal varieties in Riemannian manifolds.” In particular, he will describe the relation to Bernstein’s problem on minimal graphs as well as partial/generic regularity of area-minimizing hypersurfaces. SIMONYI HALL 101 | 2:00 P.M. Richard Schoen, Stanford University _Stability Theory for Minimal Submanifolds_ While the most dramatic and direct consequence of the 1968 paper by Jim Simons concerned the regularity of area minimizing hypersurfaces, it also introduced a systematic study of the second variation of volume and used it to show the instability of low dimensional minimal cones. Stable minimal submanifolds (and those of bounded Morse index) form a class between the stationary and area minimizers, and it is of great interest to understand their geometric and analytic properties. There has been a robust theory developed in codimension one, but much less is known in higher codimension. We will survey this theory and some of its applications to Riemannian geometry and describe some current directions. PUBLIC LECTURE WOLFENSOHN HALL | 5:00 P.M. Camillo De Lellis, IBM von Neumann Professor, Institute for Advanced Study _Breaking the Bubble: From the Brachistochrone to the Simons Cone_ From the fastest path down a ramp to the form of a soap film, the quest to find nature's most efficient shapes has driven centuries of mathematical discovery. This lecture will trace the history of the calculus of variations, translating its most important… Simonyi 101 a7a99c3d46944b65a08073518d638c23

April 30, 2026 | 2:00pm

Add to calendar 04/30/2026 14:00 Special Workshop Honoring Jim Simons use-title More: https://www.ias.edu/events/2026-jim-simons-workshop SPECIAL WORKSHOP HONORING JIM SIMONS THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 2026 SCIENTIFIC TALKS SIMONYI HALL 101 | 11:00 A.M. Otis Chodosh, Stanford University _Bernstein’s Problem and Regularity of Area-minimizing Hypersurfaces_ Chodosh will describe some old and new work related to Jim Simons’s seminal paper “Minimal varieties in Riemannian manifolds.” In particular, he will describe the relation to Bernstein’s problem on minimal graphs as well as partial/generic regularity of area-minimizing hypersurfaces. SIMONYI HALL 101 | 2:00 P.M. Richard Schoen, Stanford University _Stability Theory for Minimal Submanifolds_ While the most dramatic and direct consequence of the 1968 paper by Jim Simons concerned the regularity of area minimizing hypersurfaces, it also introduced a systematic study of the second variation of volume and used it to show the instability of low dimensional minimal cones. Stable minimal submanifolds (and those of bounded Morse index) form a class between the stationary and area minimizers, and it is of great interest to understand their geometric and analytic properties. There has been a robust theory developed in codimension one, but much less is known in higher codimension. We will survey this theory and some of its applications to Riemannian geometry and describe some current directions. PUBLIC LECTURE WOLFENSOHN HALL | 5:00 P.M. Camillo De Lellis, IBM von Neumann Professor, Institute for Advanced Study _Breaking the Bubble: From the Brachistochrone to the Simons Cone_ From the fastest path down a ramp to the form of a soap film, the quest to find nature's most efficient shapes has driven centuries of mathematical discovery. This lecture will trace the history of the calculus of variations, translating its most important… Simonyi 101 a7a99c3d46944b65a08073518d638c23

Location

Simonyi 101