AMSI Winter School Public Lecture

Event Details

Date:

Monday, 09 July 2018 - Monday, 09 July 2018

Time:

6:30 pm - 8:00 pm

UQ Location:

Abel Smith Lecture Theatre (St Lucia)

URL:

https://ws.amsi.org.au/public-lecture-2018/

Event category(s):

Full Description:: THE SPECTRUM: INCOMPUTABLE YET PHYSICALLY TANGIBLE NUMBERS by
Associate Professor Julie Rowlett, Chalmers University Of Technology
Do you like music? Did you know that there are mysterious numbers which are responsible for the way many of our favorite instruments sound? These numbers are called eigenvalues, and they can be thought of as relatives of the mysterious number, pi. When we collect all the eigenvalues, this collection of numbers is called the spectrum. These numbers determine many important physical phenomena including: the sounds caused by vibrations, the way waves travel, the flow of heat, and the energy of quantum particles. Important as they are, in general, we are unable to compute them exactly. Nonetheless, mathematicians and mathematical physicists are able to glean important information about the spectrum using a variety of techniques. I will discuss some of the approaches and methods we use, as well as the kind of results we are able to obtain. In conclusion, I will share with you some of the results we mathematicians and mathematical physics in this field of research dream about obtaining, in our vision of the future of the field.