Seminars and Colloquia by Series

Concentration of measure and optimal transport

Series
Other Talks
Time
Friday, May 20, 2011 - 15:05 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Nathael Gozlan – University of Paris, Marne La Vallee
The aim of this talk is to present recent results obtained in collaboration with C. L\'eonard, C. Roberto and P.M Samson. In the first part, I will give a necessary and sufficient condition for Talagrand's inequality on the real line. In the second part, I will explain the links between Talagrand's inequality and the dimension-free Gaussian concentration phenomenon. This will lead us to a new proof of Otto-Villani Theorem. Finally, in the third part, we will show that Talagrand's inequality is equivalent to a variant of the log-Sobolev inequality, called the inf-convolution log-Sobolev inequality. This theorem will enable us to prove a general perturbation result for Talagrand's inequality.

Graduate Student Probability Conference 2011

Series
Other Talks
Time
Friday, April 29, 2011 - 09:00 for 8 hours (full day)
Location
Klaus 1116
Speaker
Graduate Students Probability Conference – School of Mathematics, Georgia Tech

Please Note: Other organizers include: Ruoting Gong, Huy Huynh, Jinyong Ma, Ruodu Wang, and Linwei Xin.

Georgia Tech School of Mathematics will host the 5th Annual Graduate Student Probability Conference (GSPC) from April 29 - May 1, 2011. The conference is open to all graduate students and post-doctoral fellows interested in probability. We will host two keynote speakers: Professor Nathalie Eisenbaum (Université Pierre et Marie Curie) and Professor Philip Protter (Columbia University). The conference will begin at 9:00 AM Friday, April 29 and end at noon on Sunday May 1.

Atlanta Lecture Series in Combinatorics and Graph Theory III

Series
Other Talks
Time
Saturday, April 16, 2011 - 13:00 for 4 hours (half day)
Location
Klaus 1456
Speaker
Atlanta Lecture Series – School of Mathematics, Georgia Tech
Emory University, the Georgia Institute of Technology and Georgia State University will host a series of 9 mini-conferences from November, 2010 - April 2013. The conferences will stress a variety of areas and feature one prominent researcher giving 2 fifty minute lectures and 4 outstanding southern researchers each giving one fifty minute lecture. There will also be several 30 minute lecturers by young researchers or graduate students. The featured speaker is Maria Chudnovsky, Columbia University. The lectures begin at 1:00 PM Saturday, April 16 and end at noon on Sunday, April 17.

FoSoM Panel Discussion

Series
Other Talks
Time
Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 16:00 for 3 hours
Location
Skiles 005
Speaker
Math Alumni – School of Mathematics, Georgia Tech

Please Note: Refreshments will be served at 3:30.

The Friends of the School of Mathematics present a panel discussion on "Non-Academic Careers: Opportunities and Challenges for Students" A distinguished panel of alumni of the School will present their views on opportunities and challenges for students as they prepare for non-academic careers. The panelists will also answer questions from the audience. Graduate students and undergraduate majors in Mathematics are especially encouraged to attend.

Club Math - From Flapping Birds to Space Telescopes - The Mathematics of Origami

Series
Other Talks
Time
Monday, April 11, 2011 - 17:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Student Success Center, Clary Theater
Speaker
Robert Lang – Alamo, California

Please Note: Robert J. Lang is recognized as one of the foremost origami artists in the world as well as a pioneer in computational origami and the development of formal design algorithms for folding. With a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Caltech, he has, during the course of work at NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Spectra Diode Laboratories, and JDS Uniphase, authored or co-authored over 80 papers and 45 patents in lasers and optoelectronics as well as authoring, co-authoring, or editing 9 books and a CD-ROM on origami. He is a full-time artist and consultant on origami and its applications to engineering problems but moonlights in physics: from 2007-2010 as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics.

The last decade of this past century has been witness to a revolution in the development and application of mathematical techniques to origami, the centuries-old Japanese art of paper-folding. The techniques used in mathematical origami design range from the abstruse to the highly approachable. In this talk, I will describe how geometric concepts led to the solution of a broad class of origami folding problems – specifically, the problem of efficiently folding a shape with an arbitrary number and arrangement of flaps, and along the way, enabled origami designs of mind-blowing complexity and realism, some of which you’ll see, too. As often happens in mathematics, theory originally developed for its own sake has led to some surprising practical applications. The algorithms and theorems of origami design have shed light on long-standing mathematical questions and have solved practical engineering problems. I will discuss examples of how origami has enabled safer airbags, Brobdingnagian space telescopes, and more. From 3:30pm-4:30pm, Informal Folding Session will take place in Skiles 236

Robert J. Lang - Origami Informal Folding Session

Series
Other Talks
Time
Monday, April 11, 2011 - 15:30 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 236
Speaker
Robert Lang – Alamo, California
Robert Lang is recognized as one of the foremost origami artists in the world as well as a pioneer in computational origami and the development of formal design algorithms for folding. Join him for an informal folding session before his presentation.

Southeast Geometry Seminar

Series
Other Talks
Time
Sunday, April 10, 2011 - 09:00 for 8 hours (full day)
Location
Emory University
Speaker
Southeast Geometry Seminar – Emory University
The Southeast Geometry Seminar is a series of semiannual one-day events focusing on geometric analysis. These events are hosted in rotation by the following institutions: The University of Alabama at Birmingham;  The Georgia Institute of Technology;  Emory University;  The University of Tennessee Knoxville.  The following five speakers will give presentations on topics that include geometric analysis, and related fields, such as partial differential equations, general relativity, and geometric topology. Borin Rubin (Louisiana State Univ);  Joseph Fu (Univ of Georgia);  Paul Yang (Princeton U);  Robert Gulliver (Univ of Minnesota);  Ken Stephenson (U of Tennessee).   

Research in Mathematics Educational Technology - Current Trends and Future Demands

Series
Other Talks
Time
Friday, April 8, 2011 - 10:30 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
CEISMC, 760 Spring St.
Speaker
Robert Ronau and Christopher Rakes – University of Louisville and Institue for Education Sciences
This systematic review of mathematics educational technology literature identified 1356 manuscripts addressing the integration of educational technology into mathematics instruction. The manuscripts were analyzed using three frameworks (research design, teacher knowledge, and TPACK) and four supplementary lenses (Data sources, outcomes, NCTM Principles, and NCTM Standards) to produce a database to support future research syntheses and meta-analyses. Preliminary analyses of student and teacher outcomes (i.e., knowledge, cognition, affect, and performance) suggest that graphing calculator and dynamic geometry technologies have been abundantly studied, but the strength of the evidence measures (i.e., validity and reliability) may be lacking. More specifically, research on mathematics educational technology appears at first glance to be ubiquitous, the usefulness of this research to practitioners and researchers is limited by lack of attention to research design and validity, reliability, and threats to validity (Rakes et al., 2011). Additionally, much of the research appears to be unorganized, with topics such as graphing calculators studied often, while other topics such as virtual manipulatives understudied (Ronau et al., 2010).

Discussion of Gender Issues and Authority in Academics

Series
Other Talks
Time
Friday, March 4, 2011 - 12:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 257
Speaker
Open Discussions – School of Mathematics, Georgia Tech
Are there gender differences in authority in mathematics? For instance, do students treat male and female professors differently and what can we do to overcome any negative consequences? Also, what might some positive differences be? We may also discuss issues surrounding respect and authority in research. All are welcome, but if possible, please let Becca Winarski rwinarski@math.gatech.edu know if you plan on attending, so she can get an approximate head count.

Stability of vortex and wave flows from bifurcation diagrams exploiting a variational argument

Series
Other Talks
Time
Wednesday, February 9, 2011 - 16:15 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Howey W505
Speaker
Paolo Luzzatto-Fegiz – Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Cornell University
Steady fluid solutions can play a special role in characterizing the dynamics of a flow: stable states might be realized in practice, while unstable ones may act as attractors in the unsteady evolution. Unfortunately, determining stability is often a process substantially more laborious than computing steady flows; this is highlighted by the fact that, for several comparatively simple flows, stability properties have been the subject of protracted disagreement (see e.g. Dritschel et al. 2005, and references therein). In this talk, we build on some ideas of Lord Kelvin, who, over a century ago, proposed an energy-based stability argument for steady flows. In essence, Kelvin’s approach involves using the second variation of the energy to establish bounds on the growth of a perturbation. However, for numerically obtained fluid equilibria, computing the second variation of the energy explicitly is often not feasible. Whether Kelvin’s ideas could be implemented for general flows has been debated extensively (Saffman & Szeto, 1980; Dritschel, 1985; Saffman, 1992; Dritschel, 1995). We recently developed a stability approach, for families of steady flows, which constitutes a rigorous implementation of Kelvin’s argument. We build on ideas from bifurcation theory, and link turning points in a velocity-impulse diagram to exchanges of stability. We further introduce concepts from imperfection theory into these problems, enabling us to reveal hidden solution branches. Our approach detects exchanges of stability directly from families of steady flows, without resorting to more involved stability calculations. We consider several examples involving fundamental vortex and wave flows. For all flows studied, we obtain stability results in agreement with linear analysis, while additionally discovering new steady solutions, which exhibit lower symmetry. Paolo is a candidate for J Ford Fellowship at CNS. To view and/or participate in the CNS Webinar from wherever you are: evo.caltech.edu/evoNext/koala.jnlp?meeting=MeMMMu2M2iD2Di9D9nDv9e

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