This project seeks to establish a small specialized Mathematics Institute at Ohio State University, dedicated to running year-long programs designed to connect mathematical developments arising from traditionally separate fields of mathematics. The goal of this Institute is to facilitate the "cross-pollination" of ideas and results between groups of mathematicians who do not, traditionally, interact with each other, but for which a recent breakthrough indicates that exchanges of methods will lead to further discovery. The new Institute will use infrastructure currently exisiting at Ohio State, including dedicated office space, meeting rooms, and continuing funds allocated to this project. The Institute will coordinate the themes of its year-long programs with other, independently funded, national workshops and conferences, in order to maximize the amount of cross-participation between its programs and these conferences. Each of the programs chosen for the Institute's inaugural run (3 years) are also connected to a multi-university, NSF-funded, Focused Research Group(FRG) in which OSU faculty participate.
The intensified interaction between two, targeted mathematical areas, brought about by a program of this Institute, is expected to shorten the time needed by both groups to understand each others methods and results. A special year at such an Institute will more quickly cause the initial breakthrough that connects the areas to be developed and will stimulate exploitation of the basic idea to different problems in both areas.
