Guterman Lectures
Every academic year, the Department of Mathematics hosts the Martin Guterman lecture, funded by a gift from the Guterman family to commemorate our late colleague Martin Guterman and his exceptional ability to communicate real mathematics to a broad audience. For this lecture we invite a mathematician known as an engaging speaker.
April 2024
Dr. Fern Hunt, National Institute of Standards and Technology
"A random walk approach to communication in networks"Time: 4:00 pm
Location: JCC 270
Reception: JCC 535 5:00 pm
Abstract: The speaker will discuss a very simple but popular random walk description of communication in a social network known as a consensus model. An individual in the network as represented by a vertex, is connected by edges to other vertices representing members the individual communicates with. Suppose one seeks to spread a message throughout the entire network, by initially telling just a few members. Given constraints on the cardinality, what subset of nodes should be selected so the message spreads to the rest of the network at the fastest rate? We will describe an approach to this difficult problem that uses a combination of discrete optimization and age mixing theory of finite Markov chains to identify optimal and close to optimal subsets.
Biography: Fern Hunt is scientist emeritus and mathematician at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg Maryland. She holds an A.B. in Mathematics from Bryn Mawr College, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mathematics from the Courant Institute at New York University. Prior to joining NIST, she taught at City College of New York, the University of Utah, and Howard University. She has given invited addresses at AMS, SIAM, and MAA meetings, is a recipient of an Arthur S. Flemming Award for Outstanding Federal Service in Science, and was given special honors by the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. For her research, mentoring, and service, Dr. Hunt was named a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society and a Fellow of the Association for Women in Mathematics.
April 2023
Steven Strogatz, Department of Mathematics, Cornell University, (Professor Strogatz is also a New York Times columnist on mathematics.)
"Infinite Powers: The Story of Calculus"Abstract: Everyone has heard of calculus, but why is it so important? In this talk, Prof. Strogatz will try to clarify the fantastic idea at the heart of calculus. With the help of pictures and stories, he’ll trace where calculus came from and then show how it – in partnership with science, engineering, philosophy, and medicine – changed the course of civilization and helped make the world modern. This talk is intended for everyone, whether you've taken calculus or not, and whether you like math or not. By the end, Prof. Strogatz hopes to convince you that calculus is one of the greatest triumphs of human creativity ever.
April 2022
Grant Sanderson, creator of the 3Blue1Brown YouTube channel
"Where Math and Physics Collide"Time: 4:00 pm
Location: Cohen Auditorium
Reception: 5:00 pm
Abstract: The annual Guterman Lecture, made possible through the generosity of the Guterman family, honors the memory of our late colleague Marty Guterman and his extraordinary ability to communicate sophisticated mathematics to broad audiences. This year’s Guterman Lecture is also supported by the Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT), the Department of Computer Science, and the Department of Education.
March 2019
David Richeson, Dickinson College
"Tales of Impossibility"Abstract: "Nothing is impossible!" It is comforting to believe this greeting card sentiment; it is the American dream. Yet there are impossible things, and it is possible to prove that they are so. In this talk we will look at some of the most famous impossibility theorems—the so-called "problems of antiquity." The ancient Greek geometers and future generations of mathematicians tried and failed to square circles, trisect angles, double cubes, and construct regular polygons using only a compass and straightedge. It took two thousand years to prove conclusively that all four of these are mathematically impossible.
April 2018
Gigliola Staffilani, MIT
"The Many Faces of Dispersive Equations"Abstract: In recent years great progress has been made in the study of dispersive and wave equations. Over the years the toolbox used in order to attack highly nontrivial problems related to these equations has developed to include a variety of techniques from Fourier and harmonic analysis, analytic number theory, math physics, dynamical systems, probability and symplectic geometry. In this talk I will introduce a variety of problems connected with dispersive, such as the derivation of a certain nonlinear Schrodinger equations from a quantum many-particles system, periodic Strichartz estimates, the concept of energy transfer, the invariance of a Gibbs measure associated to an infinite dimension Hamiltonian system and more.
March 2017
Susan Loepp, Williams College
"The Key to Sending Secret Messages"Abstract: Suppose Alice wants to send secret messages to Bob, but the channel over which they communicate is not secure. Suppose also that their arch enemy, Eve, can intercept all communication between them. It is perhaps counterintuitive that Alice and Bob can send secret messages to each other over their insecure channel with reasonable confidence that Eve cannot decipher their messages. In this talk, we will discuss the history of, and the ideas behind public-key exchanges; the first step Alice and Bob use to send their messages. No particular mathematics background will be assumed.
April 2016
John Urschel, MIT
"Voronoi Tessellations in Today's World"Abstract: A Voronoi tessellation is a partition of space into regions defined by distance from a given set of points. What does this have to do with nature, technology, and sociology? Everything! I will introduce the concept of Voronoi tessellations and how they apply to the world we live in. In addition, I will prove new results for energy-minimizing tessellations, the so-called centroidal Voronoi tessellations.