Helen Barton Lecture: “Mysteries of unfolding polyhedra”
September 21 @ 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Speaker: Satyan L. Devadoss
We explore a puzzle whose origins date back 500 years, to the Renaissance master Albrecht Dürer, who cut open polyhedra and unfolded them to lay flat. With applications from airbag designs to origami sculptures, using theoretical and computational methods, we consider unfolding polyhedra in higher dimensions, providing what works and puzzling over what doesn’t.
This talk is heavily infused with visual imagery, with access to numerous unsolved problems.
Meeting ID: 227 429 393 820 943
Passcode: fS7bo9xd
Satyan L. Devadoss is the Fletcher Jones Professor of Applied Mathematics and Professor of Computer Science at the University of San Diego. He was faculty at Williams for nearly 15 years, holding visiting positions at UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, Ohio State, Harvey Mudd, MSRI, and Stanford. Fellow of the AMS, and recipient of two national teaching awards from the MAA, his thoughts have appeared in venues such as NPR, the Washington Post, the Times of London, the Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times. Over the years, he has been generously supported by the NSF, the Templeton Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Fletcher Jones Foundation, and DARPA. More at SatyanDevadoss.org