For more information about this meeting, contact Sergei Tabachnikov.
| Title: | Discovering and proving theorems by physical reasoning |
|---|
| Seminar: | MASS Colloquium |
|---|
| Speaker: | Mark Levi, Penn State |
|---|
| Abstract: |
|---|
| Physics often provides mathematics not only with a problem, but also with the idea of a solution. Some calculus problems can be solved more quickly without calculus, by using physics instead. A few examples of such problems will be given in a part of this talk.
In addition to these problems, quite a few theorems which may seem somewhat mysterious become completely obvious when given a proper physical incarnation. This is the case for both ``elementary" theorems (the Pythagorean theorem, Pappus' theorems, some trig identities, and many, many more) and the less elementary ones: Noether's theorem, the preservation of Poincare's integral invariants, the Gauss-Bonnet theorem, the Riemann Mapping Theorem, Green's theorem, Moser's theorem on uniformization of density, etc. (no familiarity with any of these is assumed).
I will describe a miscellaneous sampling from the above list, according to the audience's interest. No background beyond calculus and basic mechanics will be assumed in this talk. |
Room Reservation Information
| Room Number: | MB113 |
|---|
| Date: | 10 / 01 / 2009 |
|---|
| Time: | 02:30pm - 03:20pm |
|---|
