Snapshots from ICM2026

ICM2026 in Philadelphia was, for me, a celebration of mathematics and people. I met many friends and colleagues, as well as several mathematical ideas and results. The nature of these meetings is that they are abrupt and random. (Some people don’t like it, but I do.) For me, mathematics and personal stories are often entangled. I tried to attend most of the plenary lectures and most of the combinatorics and computer science sectional lectures. Of course, given the vast wealth of mathematics (and my ignorance in most areas), this was also a humbling experience. Are celebrations appropriate for me during these rather difficult times in my country (and some other places)? I tried to address this question in this post and this one. Lior Silberman wrote nicely over Facebook his live experience from the congress. Lior’s scholarly understanding of most areas of mathematics is, of course, quite an advantage. I enjoyed Annalisa Buffa’s lecture on New Challenges in Numerical Approximation of…