Conversations on Optimal Transport

This work is closely tied to the renowned mathematics textbook series known as UNITEXT, tailored for university students pursuing bachelor’s or master’s degrees. What sets this particular book apart in the Springer collection is its unique origin: it has been crafted through a meticulous process involving interviews handled with and by world-class mathematicians. The content featured in this book revolve around a highly relevant and engaging topic: Optimal Transport. These conversations involve not only authors from the UNITEXT series, but also members of the series’ Editorial Board. Additionally, they feature prominent figures in the field, including a Field Medalist. This work provides readers with a snapshot of remarkable vitality and freshness, guaranteed to captivate and engage anyone with an interest in mathematics.It’s important to note that these interviews were initially shared as podcasts and originally broadcasted as online events on the Cassyni platform. Subsequently, advanced AI tools were employed under human supervision to transcribe the audios and edit them for better readability. A human copy-editor was involved during the whole process, and the authors revised the final copy-edited texts before publication. The content in each format – the interviews, the PODCASTS and the book – is self-contained and not a mere adaptation from one medium to another. Instead, it represents an independent exploration of the subject matter.

Luigi Ambrosio is a Professor of Mathematical Analysis, a former student of the Scuola Normale Superiore and presently its Director. His research interests include calculus of variations, geometric measure theory, optimal transport and analysis in metric spaces. For his scientific achievements, he has been awarded several prizes, in particular the Fermat prize in 2003 and the Balzan Prize in 2019. Alfio Quarteroni is Professor of Numerical Analysis and Director of MOX at the Politecnico of Milan (Italy). Formerly he was Director of the Chair of Modelling and Scientific Computing at the EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), Lausanne (Switzerland), from 1998 until the end of 2017. He is the founder (and first director) of MOX at Politecnico of Milan (2002) and MATHICSE at EPFL, Lausanne (2010). He is co-founder (and President) of MOXOFF, a spin-off company at Politecnico of Milan (2010). He has been an invited or plenary speaker in more than 300 International Conferences and Academic Departments. For his scientific achievements, he has been awarded several prizes; the last one is CIAM Lagrange Prize 2023.