For more information about this meeting, contact Sergei Tabachnikov.
| Title: | Capillary surfaces |
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| Seminar: | MASS Colloquium |
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| Speaker: | Robert Finn, Stanford Univrsity |
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| Abstract: |
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| It would be hard to get through a day without encountering surfaces separating
distinct adjacent fluids. In a grotesque accident of history, all such things have come to be
labeled capillary surfaces (capillus = hair in Latin). You encounter them whenever you drink a
glass of water or wash your face, or sing in the rain or enjoy a candlelit dinner or see a
spiderweb. They appear in all sizes, from microscopic to planetary and beyond. Experience has
let us adapt to everyday occurrences, but the needs of quantitative theory lead to challenges that
defy traditional methods. The formal equations have beautiful geometric form, but almost no
exact solutions are known, and surprising things happen that have yet to be clarified. One of
them is a striking relation to billiards theory. Some of the simplest problems were solved in
approximate form during the 19th century. These “solutions” are still routinely used by engineers
as models for general behavior, however recent discoveries (in some of which undergraduate
students participated) have shown that such procedures can lead to major errors. I will discuss
the state of the theory, with emphasis on current unsolved problems. |
Room Reservation Information
| Room Number: | MB113 |
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| Date: | 12 / 02 / 2010 |
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| Time: | 02:30pm - 03:20pm |
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