Department of Mathematics
Texas A & M - Commerce
Student/Faculty Colloquium
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Binnion 301, 2:00pm
Yelin Ou,
Texas A & M - Commerce math department,
will speak on:
The geometry of soap bubbles
Abstract:
The study of minimal surfaces (like soap bubbles) has a long and rich
history and many beautiful
applications in mathematics and physics (it is recently found to be
"extremely useful in nanotechnology"). The work related to the study
of minimal surfaces has lead to two Fields Medals (what is
often considered the "Nobel Prize of
Mathematics") whilst there are still many interesting problems remain
to be explored. In this talk, I will start with surfaces and surface
area learnt in Calculus III, reviewing some interesting history and
applications of the minimal surfaces, then go into some of my research
work in the study of minimal surfaces in Riemannian manifolds.