Overview/Description:

Each summer, CCRP runs an intensive ten-week summer conference on applied mathematical problems (SCAMP). The conference concentrates on a problem area in cryptology. Some 20-25 academic mathematicians are invited to join with our research staff for these conferences.

The visitors are a very strong group of research mathematicians ranging in age from undergraduates to emeritus professors. In recent years, we have made a particular effort to include some undergraduate and/or graduate students who have demonstrated outstanding talent.

Typically, we have a mix of new and returning participants, depending upon individual proclivity for and interest in the particular problem set. Those having an outstanding talent for our problems may also be invited to join our permanent research staff.

The format of the program is rather relaxed. The first two weeks are spent attending lectures where the problems are described, the remaining eight weeks permanent research and program participants spend working on whatever problem, or piece thereof, is of interest to them. Joint work is encouraged and informal bull sessions or lectures are used to present partial results or even half baked ideas which often stimulate better ideas.

Cryptology, as a field of applied mathematics, is remarkable for the range of abstract mathematics which finds striking application. As might be expected, algebra, number theory, combinatorics and statistics play a major role, but topology, algebraic geometry and harmonic analysis have been the source of unexpected and critical contributions. One has an extraordinary opportunity to see an abstract theory turned into an effective tool solving real problems. On the one hand, this provides a deep understanding of the theory and its ramifications; and on the other, provides the exhilaration of solving problems of immediate and substantial importance.