Talks (unless otherwise indicated) are in Davis 301 from 4:00–5:00 PM on Mondays. Refreshments begin at 3:30 PM on the second floor of Davis.
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You can see next semester’s schedule.
September 19
Fernando Gouvêa
Colby College
Mr. Euler, you can’t do that!
Title
Abstract
October 24
Stephanie Dobson
Colby College
Animal communication enables collective migration in a dynamic ocean
Title
Abstract
October 31 Diamond 122
Leo Livshits
Colby College
“What Is … ?” Colloquium: Lengthy Adventures
Title
Abstract
I was once told to imagine “unbending a curve without stretching it”. My mind’s eye produced images of a thin piece of wire being unbent, and of wire molecules being rearranged in the process. “Isn’t the outer length of a semi-circular wire longer than the inner length?” teased the Devil’s advocate. “Think of a bend in a road; isn’t this why we use the differential in cars?”
I tried to quiet the little Devil by imagining thinner and thinner wires, and was gaining an upper hand until the pesky objector noted that “at some point you have to go so sub-atomic that there is no discernible wire to speak of.” But if I abandon the idea of “unbending without stretching”, how exactly do I make sense of a length of a curve? When the inner voice piped in with “… and what is a curve, anyway?”, I decided it was time to get serious about the issue.
November 7 (Runnals Dinner Guest Speaker) Olin 001
Talea Mayo
Emory University
Climate Change Impacts on Hurricane Storm Surge Risk
November 28 Diamond 122
Changningphaabi Namoijam
Colby College
Number Theory and Function Fields
Title
Abstract
In classical number theory, we study integers and objects related to integers. We can consider polynomials as analogues of integers because there are many results in the world of polynomials that complement ones from the classical case. For example, there is an analogue of the irrational number π. In this talk, we will explore this analogous π and some other number theoretic results relating to polynomials.