Series: Mathematics Colloquium

Date: Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Time: 4:00 - 5:00 PM

Place: 102 McAllister Building

Host: Luen-Chau Li

Refreshments: 3:15 - 4:00 PM, in 212 McAllister

Speaker: Percy Deift, Courant Institute, New York University

Title: Universality for Mathematical and Physical Systems

Abstract:  

  All physical systems in equilibrium obey the laws of thermodynamics.
  In other words, whatever the precise nature of the interaction
  between the atoms and molecules at the microscopic level, at the
  macroscopic level, physical systems exhibit universal behavior in
  the sense that they are all governed by the same laws and formulae
  of thermodynamics.  The speaker will recount some recent history of
  universality ideas in physics starting with Wigner's model for the
  scattering of neutrons off large nuclei and show how these ideas
  have led mathematicians to investigate universal behavior for a
  variety of mathematical systems.  This is true not only for systems
  which have a physical origin, but also for systems which arise in a
  purely mathematical context such as the Riemann hypothesis, and a
  version of the card game solitaire called patience sorting.