11/16 Brittney M. Ellis, Texas State University, 3:30-4:30 on Zoom
Title:
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10/19 Cheyne Glass, SUNY New Paltz, 3:30-4:30 at CSB 153, Flyer
Title: “Bundles, Connections, and Curvature”
Abstract: This talk will give a friendly, non-technical introduction to some ideas in differential geometry and so is suited for math-enthusiasts of all levels. Consider a sphere (like how we think of the surface of the Earth) and at each point think of all the directions one could move along the sphere (like all the direction one could walk on the Earth). This data, the sphere and the set of directions at each point forms what we call a “bundle with connection”. However, sometimes if a round-trip is made on this sphere, these directions can get a bit twisted, a phenomenon referred to as “curvature”. We will explore these notions and look into what mathematicians (like myself) know and do not know.
10/5 Jeungeun Park, SUNY New Paltz, 3:30-4:30 at CSB 153, Flyer
Title: Simulating flagellated bacteria swimming
Abstract: Some bacteria swim by rotating flagella attached to the cell body. The physical and geometrical properties of flagella characterize their swimming motility, which highly affects their chemotactic ability. To model the swimming motility and mechanism of flagellated bacteria, we introduce a mathematical model of a bacterium swimming in a fluid. For example, our simulation suggests necessary conditions of flagellar properties so that our model cell produces the experimentally observed data in P. putida whose swimming mode has been recently reported. This modeling will help understand infection and future development of bio-inspired pharmaceutical microrobots.
9/21 David Hobby, SUNY New Paltz, 3:30-4:30 at CSB 153, Flyer
Title: Continued fractions
Abstract: We will explore continued fractions, this talk should be comprehensible to students who know College Algebra. Continued fractions are an alternative way to represent real numbers.Interesting facts about them are: Fractions obtained by stopping the continued fraction at a finite stage are the best possible approximations of its value. Rational numbers have continued fractions that terminate.