When
Where
Speaker: Ari Bormanis, Program in Applied Mathematics
Title: Fear and Loathing in the Hyperbolic Plane
Abstract: The title is a bit sarcastic. We love the hyperbolic plane here! I will speak about my research with Dr. Shankar Venkataramani. We are interested in why certain strange and curly surfaces appear in nature, from leaves of lettuce to the feet of sea slugs. To answer this question, we model the observed surfaces as minimizers of an appropriate energy functional. I will explain the basic process behind this, and the math involved before diving into my current focus: proving that allowing for a certain kind of topological defect leads to surfaces with lower energies. Very minimal mathematical background is assumed. I will explain many of the differential geometry concepts that come up and try to give intuition for the rest. There will be many gifs!