Math Sciences colloquia of previous terms:
| Spring 2005 | |
| Fall 2004 | |
| Spring 2004 | |
| Fall 2003 | |
| Spring 2003 |
Math Sciences Colloquia - Spring 2006
The Center for Applied Mathematics and the IGERT Nonlinear Systems program are sponsoring the Mathematical Sciences Graduate Student Seminar Series. We hope that this seminar series will become a fixture of Cornell's interdisciplinary programs. As part of these seminars in the mathematical sciences, Cornell graduate students will give informal one-hour talks about their research to fellow graduate students as well as professors.
The idea behind these seminars is twofold: (1) To foster interactions between graduate students in various disciplines for both academic and social purposes. (2) To allow students the opportunity to present and discuss their work with a broad group of their peers in a manner that is not currently available at Cornell. No one is going to demand or expect a polished presentation. The seminar is intended for work in progress. Students should not feel shy about presenting their work, as there are many people who will be interested in hearing about it. It's a chance for graduate students to get to know each other, practice their speaking ability, offer constructive criticism, etc.
This seminar series is a natural extension of the interdiscplinary efforts of CAM and the IGERT program. We hope
you'll inform your students and colleagues of this seminar series, and we also invite you to provide suggestions for
student speakers. These suggestions or expressions of interest to give a presentation should be e-mailed to Richard
Yamada (yamada
cam.cornell.edu).
All Math Sciences colloquia take place on Wednesdays from 12:15 pm to 1pm in 657 Rhodes Hall. Pizza will be served during the talks.
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February 8 - Michael Robinson, CAM, "Do electrons really spin?"
Abstract: One of the most striking things about quantum mechanics is that it allows certain symmetries that are classically impossible. The most notorious of these is the notion of spin angular momentum. I will talk about how classical symmetrie give rise to the more bizarre quantum symmetries, focusing on the notion of spin. From there, I will discuss the mathematics underlying spin, and show how it relates to our intuition about macroscopic spinning objects.
- Wednesday, March
29 - Jeffrey Pang,
CAM, "Pseudospectra
and Variational Analysis"
Abstract: (This talk would be the same as the talk given later on 29 March, 4pm in the ORIE continuous optimization seminar, though at a much faster pace.) Pseudospectra is a robust generalisation of eigenvalues and there has been
quite a bit of interest in this area in the last 15 years or so because it explains transient behaviour in applications where eigenvalues can only explain asymptotic behaviour. (More at http://web.comlab.ox.ac.uk/projects/pseudospectra/) By applying techniques in the Lanchester prize winning work "Variational Analysis", we solve the problem of Lipschitz continuity of pseudospectra, and show its equivalence to an easily verifiable property in matrix analysis that has links in other issues in the study of pseudospectra. I hope this talk can convey both the beauty of variational analysis and an appreciation of pseudospectra. This work is joint with Prof Adrian Lewis.