Conference

The started as I had hoped it would not. The conference opening remarks were scheduled to start at 9:30. When I woke and looked at my watch, the time was 9:25. Yikes! I took a quick shower, got dressed, packed my stuff and headed out. I stopped by the breakfast area, but had no time to eat anything. I decided to take a taxi to the conference. This was a good move because it is all uphill from the hotel and I had no idea where to go. I got to the conference by 10, just in time for the first plenary talks.

The first talk dealt with designing curved surfaces using flat shapes. The tricky part is flat material like paper or steel does not want to conform to a curved shape. However, one can distribute the curvature of the boundary between flat pieces by making the boundary as long as possible.

The second speaker, George Hart, gave an interesting discussion of stick puzzles and displayed some for the audience to study. George also talked about the new museum of mathematics that will open in Manhattan in Fall 2012.

I ate lunch at a cafeteria at the University. I decided to pass on the head-on grilled sardines and opted to have plate with some cold fish salad, potato salad, some melon, and a flan-like dessert.

A view of Coimbra from the University.

I then headed to the session I was chairing and speaking. Overall it went well. A few speakers did not seem to understand the time constraints. One speaker showed up right when he was scheduled to speak. Of course it took a few minutes to set up and he had more material then time. He finally gave up talking. Luckily the next speaker, a young woman from Turkey, spoke quickly and completed her talk with time to spare. Overall the talks were interesting. I definitely got a new appreciation for keeping your talk to the time allotted! My talk went well and I had several positive comments afterwards. We had a short coffee break and I went to the final session of talks. One speaker, Rinus Roelofs, showed some verying interesting 3D models. It seems that many have access to robotic paper cutters and 3D printers - some things now on my wishlist. I saw quite a few people I knew at the conference and many cool art works.

I went back to the hotel after the talks. I then went to dinner. At 7 pm. it is still on the early side for dinner, but I went anyway. The clerk at the hotel recommended another place a few blocks away. I sat at a nice outdoor table with a view of the action in the adjacent plaza. Tonight the "entertainment" was a young man and woman arguing and scuffling. The wait staff and other patrons seemed surprised and acted like this was not common place. I was happy the menu had English translations. I then ordered scallops and mushrooms, a favorite of mine. I had a bowl of good soup as a starter. The scallops came, but rather than sea scallops, they were beef scallops. It was good, but I really need to work on better food translations. I finished with a glass of red porto and headed back to the hotel for the evening. I am hopeful to get more sleep and make it to the conference on time tomorrow.