Mathematics in Science & Society
Fall 2000

Archive

Tuesday, October 24, 4:00 p.m., 314 Altgeld Hall

Speaker: Professor Donald Saari, Departments of Economics and Mathematics, University of California at Irvine

Title: Mathematics and Democracy

Abstract: Voting is a basic tool of every democracy. We vote to choose the name for a pet dog, to choose a text book, a department chair, a U.S. Senator, and, in a couple of weeks, the President of the United States. But does the election outcome capture what the voters want? Even without the election antics traditionally associated with a certain city in northern Illinois, the answer is "Not necessarily." As shown with several examples, there are times when the "wrong" person gets elected.

But why?! This has interested political scientists, economists, mathematicians, politicians and others for centuries. The source of these mysteries is now emerging: I will show how mathematics and the symmetries it discovers are finally providing answers and resolutions.

Host: Richard Laugesen, laugesen@math.uiuc.edu

Tuesday, December 5, 4:00 p.m., 314 Altgeld Hall

Speaker: Brent Collins, Sculptor, Missouri

Title: Visual Mathematics from Artistic Intuition

Abstract: I am neither a scientist nor a mathematician. My artistic intuitions as a sculptor have nonetheless consistently led to an art of surprising mathematical coherency. Much of my art has revolved (apparently) around surfaces of negative Gaussian curvature, in particular minimal surfaces, such as occur in soap films. Knowing that such curvatures can be viewed as an evocation of nature's aesthetic temper in sculpture has been an inspiration for me.

Since 1996 I have been collaborating with computer scientist Carlo Séquin (U. of California, Berkeley) on software to allow visualization and virtual prototyping of my sculpture. I will talk about and display some results of this collaboration, and will present one of my latest works. To see examples of the work with Séquin, visit www.cs.berkeley.edu/~sequin/SCULPTS/scherk.html

Host: Richard Laugesen, laugesen@math.uiuc.edu

Tuesday, February 13, 4:00 p.m., 245 Altgeld Hall

Speaker: Provost Richard Herman, UIUC

Title: to be announced

Tuesday, February 20, 4:00 p.m., 245 Altgeld Hall

Speaker: Dr. Marc Diamond, Northwest Airlines Operations Research Unit

Title: to be announced

Host: Joe Rosenblatt, jrsnbltt@math.uiuc.edu

Last modified November 7, 2000, 2000