Mean Field Spin Glasses in 2016

Spin glasses were introduced back in the 60's to address the behavior of magnetic alloys, such as AuFe or CuMg. Their rigorous treatment gave rise to a class of models, whose analysis by both physicists and mathematicians has grown into one of the most fascinating fields of statistical mechanics. During the past 50 years, they also found fundamental applications to combinatorial optimization theory, deep learning, protein folding, etc. In this talk, the speaker will describe these mathematical objects and survey the remarkable rigorous progress of the past 10 years in this field.