Department of Mathematical Sciences
Past Public Lectures
Fourth Public Lecture (in conjunction with the 21st Summer Conference on Topology and its Applications)
Time: Friday, July 7, 2006, 7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Venue: Room 1005, Information Technology Building
| Speaker: Professor Yang Wang, School of
Mathematics, Georgia Institute of Technology
Title: Twindragon, Reptiles, and Fractals Professor Wang will discuss a fascinating and relatively new area of mathematics: fractal tiles. |
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Professor Yang Wang received his Ph.D. in 1990 from Harvard University. He is best known for his work on fractal tiles. In a series of joint papers with Jeffery Lagarias in the 1990's, they laid down a foundation of an active research areas called self-affine tilings.
This lecture is sponsored by the Department of Mathematical Sciences of Georgia Southern University.
All are welcome!
High school students are especially welcome!
About the Public Lecture Series:
The Public Lecture Series is especially established for the audience with only high school mathematical background. The Department of Mathematical Sciences invites mathematicians from around the world to deliver a series of public lectures to high school students and teachers, as well as the general public in the region. We think it is important for high school students to have chances to listen to, and interact directly with, mathematicians who constantly redefine the frontiers of mathematical knowledge. Thus, all speakers we invite are active researchers who are also dedicated to educating the future generations. Our goals are to raise the public awareness of the importance of mathematics, and to increase student interest in learning mathematics.
Third Public Lecture
Time: Saturday, April 22, 2006, 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon.
Venue: Room 1005, Information Technology Building
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Lecture 1: Professor De Witt Sumners, Florida State University Title: Calculating the secrets of life: mathematics in biology and medicine. Abstract: The human body is an extremely complicated biological system. Spurred by spectacular recent progress, biology and medicine are experiencing an explosion of data. In order to convert this firehose of data into usable knowledge, mathematics and computation (both old and new) are needed to build models and navigational tools. This talk is intended for a general audience, and will briefly discuss a few applications to show the impact that mathematics can have in biology and medicine: in the cell (understanding how enzymes operate on DNA); in the heart (controlling fibrillation); and in the brain (understanding brain function). Lecture 2: Professor Frédéric Mynard, Georgia Southern University Title: Everything you always wanted to know about topology but were afraid to ask. Abstract: Topology is NOT the study of terrain and terrain change as people sometime believe. In other words, topology and topography are two different things. So, what is topology? This is what this talk will be about (hence, I'm not giving it away!). Topological ideas underly a very large part of modern mathematics and are the foundation of many notions and theories, even Calculus. But we don't need to talk about sophisticated mathematics to understand what topology is about. Geometric considerations easy to follow for a high school students will be sufficient for a start. Then, a closer look at notions from Calculus will lead us to a deeper understanding of topology and its more technical role in mathematics. Refreshments will be available at 9:30 a.m. outside of Room 1005. All are welcome! High school students are especially welcome! |
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Second
Public Lecture
| Speaker:
Professor
Eric McDowell, Berry College.
Title: Counting Time:Thursday, February 16, 2006, 6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Venue: Room 1005,
College of Information Technology Building. All are welcome! High school students are
especially welcome! Refreshments will be available at 5:30 p.m. outside of Room 1005 of the Information Technology Building. |
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Abstract:
Once upon a time human beings had no concept of number. They had no word or gesture to express the number of people in their village or the number of nights between full moons.
A new mother of this era would have been unable to count the number of fingers on her newborn's right hand. However, she would have recognized that her baby's right hand had as many fingers as her own by touching each finger of her right hand to a corresponding finger of her baby's right hand. When each of her fingers touched exactly one of his and each of his fingers touched exactly one of hers, she knew that her collection of right-hand fingers was the same size as his collection of right-hand fingers.
The pairing of each element of one collection to exactly one element of another collection so that no elements are left over is called a one-to-one correspondence.
The goal of this talk is to demonstrate
how the notion of one-to-one correspondence can be used to "count" the
members of very large sets. Toward this end, we will
encounter no-vacancy hotels that can accommodate additional guests,
different sized sets with the same "number" of elements, and an
infinite collection of different infinities.
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First
Public Lecture
Saturday, November 5, 2005, 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon
Venue: Room 3001, Math/Physics Building.
All are welcome! High school students are especially welcome!
The
theme of this lecture is fractal geometry. Fractal are highly
irregular and complex mathematical objects used by scientists and
engineers to model natural objects such as trees, leaves, clouds,
mountains, paths of lightning, etc. The mathematical theory of fractal
geometry, developed over the past three decades, has deep impacts on
many branches of classical and modern mathematics. In these two
introductory lectures we will explain how fractal sets can be generated
easily, and how fractal geometry interacts with other branches of
mathematics. Both lectures are intended for the audience with only high
school mathematical background. Professional mathematicians and
scientists may also find these lectures interesting.
Lecture 1. Fractals and the golden ratio.
Speaker: Manav
Das, University of Louisville
Lecture 2. Fractals and tilings. (pdf revised: Nov 7, 2005).
Speaker: Sze-Man
Ngai, Georgia Southern Univ.
Barnsley's Fern (Created by:
Kin-Wai Mak and Sze-Man Ngai, 1996)
For questions and inquiries about the Public Lecture Series, please contact Dr. Billur Kaymakcalan or Dr. Chunshan Zhao