John
Doyle
Professor
Doyle is the John G Braun Professor of Control and Dynamical Systems,
Electrical Engineering, and Bioengineering at the California Institute
of Technology. He earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, and his Ph.D. from University of California
in 1984. Since then, he has done pioneering work in a broad variety
of fields connected to control and dynamical systems, as well as established
many athletic records in the U.S. and abroad.
Invited
Talks: Thursday, Friday (July 15-16)
This symposium is designed to bring together experts in mathematics,
physics, biology, and networking in an interactive exchange of ideas
on the design, analysis, and control of complex systems. A major goal
is to bring domain experts together who normally might not interact,
to explore common features of their work that can mutually reinforce
and synergize theory and applications in their fields. The challenges
facing experts in these domains have striking parallels, and their
solutions are linked by common constraints. This symposium will be
a unique, open discussion of the threads that lead to a broader understanding
of the mathematical tools necessary to tackle large problems in each
area. Leaders in the areas of communications, internet, computational
complexity, biophysics, biological systems, medicine, quantum physics,
statistical physics, engineering, and mathematics will come together
in multidisciplinary sessions, moderated and facilitated by other
experts in these fields. The workshop will also produce a publication
through SIAM for which the speakers will join forces with collaborators
and especially with current students to elaborate on their topics
in light of the workshop findings.
Background
Just 20 years ago, the 1984 ONR/Honeywell workshop on robust control
helped turn a nascent and largely fringe topic into the heart of mainstream
control theory. One of the most striking features of this workshop
and the resulting renaissance in control theory was that the subject
simultaneously became much more sophisticated mathematically, and
more vigorously applied to practical applications, belying the common
wisdom on the theory/practice gap. Professor Doyle's work was the
explicit centerpiece of the 1984 workshop, and he actually delivered
much of the first two day's tutorials, with a third day of invited
talks by experts. The current workshop will focus on the invited talks,
with a one-day tutorial to help create a common background, primarily
intended for students. The 1984 workshop was planned for 20 people,
but 120 attended, and the tutorial notes became among the most-cited
references in the subject. We hope this 2004 event will have even
broader impact, helping move a nascent but promising approach to a
unified theory of complex systems from a fragmented discipline into
the mainstream of science and technology.There are reasons for optimism.
In the last five years the traditional control and dynamical systems
(CDS) community has branched out dramatically into application areas
that cut across all scientific endeavors. Caltech CDS
and friends have been at the front and center of this trend, already
impacting areas as diverse as internet protocols, fluid mechanics,
systems biology, ecology, finance, and multiscale physics. Many CDS
students and collaborators have already brought novel ideas and tools
from controls to areas outside their traditional training to influence
these diverse fields. But it is increasingly clear that progress in
the different domains would be greatly improved by dialog across disciplines,
as Caltech CDS has become the hub of an ever expanding wheel of research,
but one with more spokes than rim. This fragile situation would benefit
from more robust connections, exactly the aim of this symposium.Engineers
and biologists need to talk to each other, and to theorists who can
develop a common foundation. Their communication is hampered first
by language barriers with each area super-specialized in training
and research. The communication requires a hard-core re-tooling, a
considerable effort to which few scientists are willing and/or able
to commit. If an engineer wants to inform biology, time and effort
has to be put aside for learning the details and larger structure
of biology, a daunting task. This workshop pulls together many people
who have made that commitment at various stages in their careers,
often influenced or directly motivated by their interactions with
Doyle and CDS faculty, and their common language is mathematics. An
underlying theme of this workshop is to look forward to ways in which
future scientists can be educated in a common set of computational
and quantitative methods, to prepare them to interact broadly from
the time they are students and throughout their academic careers.