Variational problems involving area.

Series
Research Horizons Seminar
Time
Wednesday, December 2, 2009 - 12:00pm for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 171
Speaker
John McCuan – School of Mathematics, Georgia Tech – mccuan@math.gatech.edu
Organizer
Craig Sloane
I will describe several geometrical problems that arise from the minimization of some sort of integral functional and the basic relation between such minimization and partial differential equations. Then I will make some further comments on my favorite kind of such problems, namely those that have something to do with minimizing area of surfaces under various side conditions.