Wed, 04/15/2009 - 3:05pm Miller Learning Center, Room 102 David Mumford Brown University Wednesday, April 15, 2009 3:30pm, Miller Learning Center, Room 102 Title of talk: Mathematics and the Diversity of Cultures Mathematics has played a vital role in every culture. Looking at the three cultures -- China, India and the West -- one can, to some extent “replay” the history of math from three different starting points. Sometimes one finds that it developed with strong parallels but sometimes with deep differences. The development of five mathematical ideas in these different cultures will be used to illustrate this. Does this complex history support or refute the Platonic idea that mathematics has a universal existence, independent of its discovery by humanity? Refreshments will be served at 3:00pm preceding each lecture. Thursday, April 16, 2009 3:30pm, Room 328 Boyd Graduate Studies Bldg. Title of talk: The mathematical theory of shape and its applications to computer vision and medical imaging The first of two talks, in which I will give a less technical introduction to the range of mathematical problems concerning "shape" which arise from object recognition and medical diagnosis. In particular, I will explain in simple terms why it may be useful for a physician to be aware that shapes form an infinite-dimensional non-linear manifold. Friday, April 17, 2009 3:30pm, Room 328, Boyd Graduate Studies Bldg. Title of talk: The mathematical theory of shape and its applications to computer vision and medical imaging, continued I will go into the results from differential geometry that describe the geometry of these shape spaces in various different Riemannian metrics. Already, the manifold of simple closed plane curves carries three totally distinct types of metric. These ideas go back to Arnold but they are now attracting increasing attention. For additional information about the 2009 Cantrell lecture series please contact: Dino Lorenzini, lorenzini@math.uga.edu ● Malcolm Adams, adams@math.uga.edu
