The Graduate Student Seminar (GSS) is a weekly seminar in the Brandeis Mathematics Department run by the GSS organizers: Joshua Perlmutter, Neha Goregaokar, and Alan Hou, the Graduate Department Representatives.
GSS is a great way to learn how to give research talks
before you've learned enough to enlighten other mathematicians with your amazing research and
in a low-pressure environment.
It's difficult to overstate the importance of communicating your research effectively. You can speak about whatever you're reading now, your research, or something you think all math grad students should know. So, join us and learn the skill many mathematicians never learn.
The seminar is by grad students and for grad students only! Faculty are not allowed to come.
You can view some previous semesters' schedules by using the navigation at the top of the page.
Fall 2025
September 11 -- Sarah Dennis
Title: Comparing reduced order models for a low Reynolds number fluid
Abstract: Classical lubrication theory (CLT) states that if an incompressible fluid is sufficiently long and thin, with a sufficiently low Reynolds number (i.e sufficiently slow and viscous), then the Navier-Stokes (N-S) equations reduce to a single linear elliptic differential equation, known as the Reynolds equation. Extended lubrication theory (ELT) considers various relaxations of the CLT assumptions, leading to intermediate models between the Reynolds and N-S equations. In this talk I will cover the nondimensionalization of the N-S equations which leads to the CLT and ELT models. Then I will compare the performance of the fluid models for a variety of textured slider bearings. A primary concern for models in lubrication theory is that although the fluid may be long and thin in a global sense, any large (or worse, discontinuous) surface gradients are a local violation of the long and thin assumption. The focus of our model comparison then, is to assess the extent to which local violations of the lubrication assumptions contribute to global error.
September 18 -- Akiva Weinberger
Title: Proving pi Irrational (and e Transcendental)
Abstract: Pi is one of humanity’s oldest mathematical constants, but nobody had managed to prove that it was irrational until Johann Heinrich Lambert did in 1761. It would be more than another century until it was shown to be transcendental, by Ferdinand von Lindemann in 1882. Euler’s constant, e, was easier to understand, being proven irrational in 1683 and transcendental in 1873. I will prove the irrationality of π, and, as a bonus, the transcendence of e.
October 9 -- Jack Pierce
Title: Constrained Motion Spaces of Robotic Arms
Abstract: In robotics, motion planning is the study of how robots may make decisions navigating through a configuration space. The homology groups of a configuration space determine how complicated the navigation is. For a robotic arm in the plane, the motion space is the configuration space of how the arm may move with one end attached to the origin. In this talk, I will compute the homology groups of the motion space of a robotic arm constrained to move along a smooth curve.
October 30 -- Neha Goregaokar
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November 6 -- TBA
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November 13 -- TBA
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November 20 -- TBA
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December 4 -- TBA
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December 11 -- TBA
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