The American Institute of Mathematics (AIM) celebrated its 100^th workshop on Monday, May 12, 2008 with the beginning of the workshop, Ferroelectric Phenomena in Soft Matter Systems. "We are excited to reach this milestone," said Director Brian Conrey. "During the past six years, AIM has developed a workshop style that has been successful at bringing together different groups of researchers to share ideas and new developments in their fields toward a common goal."

The goal of the 100^th workshop is to overcome present obstacles in the modeling and simulation of liquid crystal systems and other ferroelectric phenomena. Specifically, researchers hope to better understand the process of switching, both for a liquid-like ferroelectric model and a solid material with liquid features. The organizers have brought together a cross-disciplinary group of participants to tackle this issue. Experimental and theoretical physicists are working with analytical and computational mathematicians to explore new techniques for modeling these unusual but ubiquitous systems.