Seminars and Colloquia by Series

A two-scale proof of the Eyring-Kramers formula

Series
Other Talks
Time
Tuesday, April 22, 2014 - 11:05 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Georg Menz – Stanford University
We consider a diffusion on a potential landscape which is given by a smooth Hamiltonian in the regime of small noise. We give a new proof of the Eyring-Kramers formula for the spectral gap of the associated generator of the diffusion. The proof is based on a refinement of the two-scale approach introduced by Grunewald, Otto, Villani, and Westdickenberg and of the mean-difference estimate introduced by Chafai and Malrieu. The Eyring-Kramers formula follows as a simple corollary from two main ingredients : The first one shows that the Gibbs measure restricted to a domain of attraction has a "good" Poincaré constant mimicking the fast convergence of the diffusion to metastable states. The second ingredient is the estimation of the mean-difference by a new weighted transportation distance. It contains the main contribution of the spectral gap, resulting from exponential long waiting times of jumps between metastable states of the diffusion. This new approach also allows to derive sharp estimates on the log-Sobolev constant. This is joint work with Andre Schlichting.

Linear Algebra as a Natural Language for Special Relativity and Its Paradoxes

Series
Other Talks
Time
Wednesday, April 2, 2014 - 19:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Clough Undergraduate Learning Center Room 144
Speaker
John de Pillis – University of California, Riverside –
Using basic linear algebra as a natural language of special relativity, and assuming very little knowledge of physics, we present a novel linear-algebraic derivation of the Lorentz transformation. Through the geometry of Minkowski diagrams, we analyze properties and paradoxes of special relativity including the Twin paradox and the bug-rivet paradox.Dr. de Pillis is a renowned cartoonist and animator, and his new book entitled Illustrated Special Relativity Through its Paradoxes is a fusion of Linear Algebra, Graphics, and Reality.

Southeast Geometry Seminar XXIV

Series
Other Talks
Time
Sunday, March 30, 2014 - 08:30 for 8 hours (full day)
Location
Skiles 005
Speaker
Southeast Geometry Seminar – School of Mathematics, Georgia Tech
The Southeast Geometry Seminar is a series of semiannual one-day events focusing on geometric analysis. These events are hosted in rotation by the following institutions: The University of Alabama at Birmingham, The Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory University, The University of Tennessee Knoxville. The following six speakers will give presentations on topics that include geometric analysis, and related fields, such as partial differential equations, general relativity, and geometric topology: Robert Finn (Stanford University), Bo Guan (Ohio State University), John Harvey (University of Notre Dame), Fernando Schwartz (University of Tennessee), Henry Wente (Toledo, Ohio), Xiangwen Zhang (Columbia University) .

Georgia Scientific Computing Symposium 2014

Series
Other Talks
Time
Saturday, February 22, 2014 - 09:00 for 8 hours (full day)
Location
Kennesaw State University
Speaker
Georgia Scientific Computing Symposium – Kennesaw State University

Please Note: Contact Yuliya Babenko, ybabenko@kennesaw.edu

The Georgia Scientific Computing Symposium 2014 will be held at Kennesaw State University (KSU) on Saturday, February 22. It is organized by KSU Departments of Mathematics and Statistics and Computer Science. There will be six plenary talks and a poster session. Graduate students, postdocs, and junior faculty are encouraged to present posters. For complete details and to register, see the symposium website

Atlanta Lecture Series in Combinatorics and Graph Theory XI

Series
Other Talks
Time
Saturday, January 25, 2014 - 09:00 for 8 hours (full day)
Location
Georgia State University, Room 150, College of Education, 30 Pryor Street, Atlanta, GA
Speaker
Alexander Schrijver – Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica, Amsterdam
Emory University, Georgia Tech and Georgia State University, with support from the National Science Foundation and the National Security Agency, will continue the series of mini-conferences and host a series of 9 new mini-conferences from 2013-2016. The 11th of these mini-conferences will be held at Georgia State University from January 25-26, 2014. The conferences will stress a variety of areas and feature one prominent researcher giving 2 fifty minute lectures and 4 outstanding researchers each giving one fifty minute lecture. There will also be several 25 minute lecturers by younger researchers or graduate students. For more details, see the schedule

Nonlinear Science & Mathematical Physics - Time Crystals

Series
Other Talks
Time
Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - 15:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Howey N110
Speaker
Al Shapere – University of Kentucky

Please Note: Host: Dan Goldman, Physics

I introduce a class of dynamical systems which exhibit motion in their lowest-energy states and thus spontaneously break time-translation symmetry. Their Lagrangians have nonstandard kinetic terms and their Hamiltonians are multivalued functions of momentum, yet they are perfectly consistent and amenable to quantization. Possible applications to condensed matter systems and cosmology will be discussed.

Southeast Geometry Seminar XXIII

Series
Other Talks
Time
Sunday, November 10, 2013 - 08:45 for 8 hours (full day)
Location
Emory University
Speaker
Southeast Geometry Seminar – Emory University
The Southeast Geometry Seminar is a series of semiannual one-day events focusing on geometric analysis. These events are hosted in rotation by the following institutions: Emory University; Georgia Institute of Technology; University of Alabama at Birmingham; University of Tennessee Knoxville. The following five speakers will give presentations: Alex Freire (University of Tennessee, Knoxville); Matthew Gursky (University of Notre Dame); William Minicozzi II (MIT); Yanir Rubinstein (University of Maryland); Gaoyong Zhang (NYU-Poly). Please email oliker@mathcs.emory.edu if you plan to attend and wish to request support.

Atlanta Lecture Series in Combinatorics and Graph Theory X

Series
Other Talks
Time
Saturday, November 2, 2013 - 09:00 for 8 hours (full day)
Location
Emory University, Room W201, Math and Science Center
Speaker
Dhruv Mubayi – University of Illinois at Chicago
Emory University, Georgia Tech and Georgia State University, with support from the National Science Foundation and the National Security Agency, will continue the series of mini-conferences and host a series of 9 new mini-conferences from 2013-2016. The first new and 10th overall of these mini-conferences will be held at Emory University on November 2-3, 2013. The conferences will stress a variety of areas and feature one prominent researcher giving 2 fifty minute lectures and 4 outstanding researchers each giving one fifty minute lecture. There will also be several 25 minute lecturers by younger reseachers or graduate students.

ACO/Theory Seminar - Dichotomies in Equilibrium Computation - Markets Provide a Surprise

Series
Other Talks
Time
Wednesday, August 21, 2013 - 16:30 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Klaus 1116W
Speaker
Vijay V. Vazirani – School of Computer Science, Georgia Tech

Please Note: Hosted by School of Computer Science.

Equilibrium computation is among the most significant additions to the theory of algorithms and computational complexity in the last decade - it has its own character, quite distinct from the computability of optimization problems. Our contribution to this evolving theory can be summarized in the following sentence: Natural equilibrium computation problems tend to exhibit striking dichotomies. The dichotomy for Nash equilibrium, showing a qualitative difference between 2-Nash and k- Nash for k > 2, has been known for some time. We establish a dichotomy for market equilibrium. For this purpose. we need to define the notion of Leontief-free functions which help capture the joint utility of a bundle of goods that are substitutes, e.g., bread and bagels. We note that when goods are complements, e.g., bread and butter, the classical Leontief function does a splendid job. Surprisingly enough, for the former case, utility functions had been defined only for special cases in economics, e.g., CES utility function. We were led to our notion from the high vantage point provided by an algorithmic approach to market equilibria. Note: Joint work with Jugal Garg and Ruta Mehta.

Pages