The 2008 Annual Initiation and Awards Banquet will be held Wednesday April 23 in the Executive Lounge and Dining Room of the Roaden University Center. Our visiting Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer this year will be Dr. Michael Wolf of the Department of Mathematics at Rice University. At 3:00 p.m. on April 23, in Room 225 of Prescott Hall, Dr. Wolf will present a public lecture on How Nature Chooses its Shape: The Mathematics of Soap Films (see abstract below). He will also give this presentation at the banquet.
How Nature Chooses its Shape: The Mathematics of Soap Films
Abstract
From the time of Leibniz's theological description of this world as the best of
all possible worlds, mathematicians have struggled to explain why nature is
shaped the way we find it. We introduce the mathematical field of the "calculus
of variations", using soapy water experiments to illustrate the richness of
examples possible in the mathematical subfield of minimal surfaces -- an
aesthetically pleasing area explored nightly by small children in their
bathtubs.