Acta Polytechnica


Acta Polytechnica 62(1):1–2, 2022 © 2022 The Author(s). Licensed under a CC-BY 4.0 licence
Published by the Czech Technical University in Prague

PREFACE TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE OF ACTA POLYTECHNICA
“ANALYTIC AND ALGEBRAIC METHODS IN PHYSICS”

Andrii Khrabustovskii, Miloslav Znojil

In September 2021, the XVIIIth continuation of the series of the international, mathematically oriented
conferences “Analytic and Algebraic Methods in Physics” (AAMP) had to be organized, for well-known reasons,
online. Fortunately, every cloud has a silver lining: the related reduction of the capacity of the scientific
communication channels led to the willingness of the participants to return to the recently almost abandoned
tradition of complementing the Zoom-mediated meeting by a subsequent preparation of an AAMP-oriented
Special Issue (SI) of Acta Polytechnica.

The main purpose of this SI is twofold. Firstly, it is intended to offer, in written form, a sufficiently
representative sample of what has been presented online. This means that in the form of the standard refereed
papers, the readers of this SI will be rewarded by the up-to-the-minute information about the current state of
art. Secondly, in an ambition which reaches behind the meeting itself, the contributing authors felt motivated
by the idea that a compact and comprehensible presentation of their results might find a broader readership
among people who would not normally participate in the conference but who could still find at least some of the
presented results potentially relevant for their own field of research.

In comparison with the AAMP meeting itself (where the separate subjects covered by 36 talks have been
subdivided into 12 sections), a minor disadvantage of our present SI lies, from the point of view of its readers at
least, in the (traditional) alphabetical ordering of the contributions by their first authors. Fortunately, interested
readers might get more info about the subdivisions of the subjects via the webpage of the conference [1]. Another
weakness of the SI collection could be seen, mainly by the 75 AAMP participants themselves, in an incomplete
coverage of the talks. Indeed, roughly one third of them was not eligible for our SI because the material was
based on the recently published papers. Again, the related complementary information is available via the
AAMP homepage [1].

This being said, the readers of this SI are expected to make their own selection of the consumption out of
the menu. All of the papers belong to the AAMP framework, but even such a restriction admitted the inclusion
of a broad spectrum of subfields, which are all bridging the gaps between the existing abstract mathematical
structures (ranging from our understanding of ordinary differential equations up to the applications of the
various forms of symmetries, antilinear symmetries, supersymmetries and nonlinearities) and their possible
practical implementations (ranging again from multiple elementary models and methodical considerations up
to certain fairly complicated phenomenological questions as encountered, say, in the relativistic quantum field
theory).

In the AAMP context, we could speak about the tradition of the search for a deeper understanding of
the connection between mathematics and physics. This led, in 2007, to the formulation of the project and to
the organization of the series of the dedicated international conferences. At that time, indeed, the analytic
and algebraic methods were particularly actively developed by the Founding Fathers from the Nuclear Physics
Institute of the CAS in Řež. In this sense, the mathematical side of the bridge to physics has been (and, in fact,
it is still being) restricted to the analytic and algebraic methods. In parallel, the physics side of the same bridge
proved quickly growing with time. At present, its scope covers so many parts of physics that even the originally
tacitly assumed specification “quantum physics” would and could be considered over-restrictive.

One can only conclude that the interaction between mathematics and physics remains enormously productive.
We believe that our SI will contribute to this productivity, counteracting the extent of damages caused to the
scientific world by the coronavirus. One of its most damaging effects was, indeed, the interruption of many
regular series of international conferences, of which the series “Analytic and Algebraic Methods in Physics”
(AAMP), regularly taking place in Prague every year, is just one of many examples. In fact, the original hopes
that the interruption might only last one year were not fulfilled.

Equally disappointing proved to be our slow but definite empirical discovery that the success and efficiency
of the transformation of these conferences into virtual meetings (mediated, say, by Zoom) remains limited. What
was saved was only a form, not the full contents; not the essence. We all revealed that there exists no real
substitute for the face-to-face meetings, converting the hours of isolated research performed by individuals into
an exchange of ideas and providing a platform for their critical re-evaluation. Creating a genuine living science
which can acquire its final, collective and truly creative character only after multiple informal debates and only
after multiple active personal interactions.

For all of these reasons, the organizers of the AAMP series came to the conclusion that one of the possible
reactions to the unpleasant current circumstances would be an enrichment of the internet-mediated standard

1

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
https://www.cvut.cz/en


Andrii Khrabustovskii, Miloslav Znojil Acta Polytechnica

form of the meetings (in which one listens to talks for a few days, without having a real opportunity of discussing
the subjects in the couloirs) via a return to an apparently obsolete practice of a subsequent preparation and
publication of at least some of the talks in their written, more lasting and better accessible form, better suitable
for the subsequent critical re-evaluation.

In this special issue of Acta Polytechnica, the readers will have the opportunity of seeing and, perhaps,
appreciating the result. Surprisingly, many speakers decided to contribute. For us, this is a proof that the
production of special issues characterized by a well-defined and not-too-broad range of subjects still makes sense.

On behalf of organizers, the guest editors of the special issue,

Andrii Khrabustovskii and Miloslav Znojil, University of Hradec Králové

References
[1] http://www.ujf.cas.cz/en/departments/department-of-theoretical-physics/events/conferencies/AAMP/

index.html

2

http://www.ujf.cas.cz/en/departments/department-of-theoretical-physics/events/conferencies/AAMP/index.html
http://www.ujf.cas.cz/en/departments/department-of-theoretical-physics/events/conferencies/AAMP/index.html

	Acta Polytechnica 62(1):1–2, 2022
	References