G. Milton Wing Lectures

About the lectures

The George Milton Wing lectures present topics in mathematics of interest to the larger scientific community and to the general public. Read more…

Email updates

To receive email updates of upcoming Wing lectures, send a message to listserv@lists.rochester.edu with the text subscribe MATH_WING in the body of the message.

Spring 2018

• 

  Prof. Robert J. Lang
  April 4-6, 2018

  • From Flapping Birds to Space Telescopes: The Modern Science of Origami (Public Lecture)

  • Microscopic to Monumental: Origami in Wood, Bronze, and Steel (Public Lecture)

  • Mathematical Algorithms for Origami Design (more specialized)

• 

  Prof. Manuela Campanelli
  Rochester Institute of Technology
  March 5-7, 2018

  • Thunder and Lightning from Cosmic Titans in the Era of Multi-Messenger Astronomy (Public Lecture)

  • Getting the Thunderstorm Right: Solving Einstein’s Equations with Numerical Relativity

  • Computing the Lightning from Massive Black Hole Mergers

Fall 2017

• 

  Prof. Moon Duchin
  Tufts University
  October 2 - 3, 2017

  • What do shapes have to do with fair voting? (Public lecture)

  • Sprawl and other dispersion metrics

  • Can you hear the shape of a billiard table?

Spring 2017

• 

  Prof. Catherine Sulem, F.R.S.C
  University of Toronto
  April 5 - 7, 2017

  • The dynamics of ocean waves (Public lecture)

  • Nonlinear Waves: solitons and self-focusing

  • Surface water waves over a varying bottom

Spring 2017

• 

  Prof. William Stein
  University of Washington and SageMath, Inc.
  February 8 - 10, 2017

  • Teaching classes and doing research with collaborative web-based open-source software

  • Developing open-source mathematical software as an academic: SageMath

  • The Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture and the Riemann hypothesis: Computing with number theoretic objects

Fall 2016

• 

  Prof. Emeritus Doris Schattschneider
  Moravian College
  November 20 – 22

  • Mathematics and the Art of M. C. Escher
    References (PDF)

  • Lessons in Duality and Symmetry from M. C. Escher
    References (PDF)

  • Escher’s Combinatorial Patterns
    References (PDF)

  The Escher exhibition at the Memorial Art Gallery runs from Nov 13 through January 29.

Spring 2016

• 

  Donald Saari
  University of California at Irvine
  April 19 - 20

  • It’s an Election Year! But Will Voters Elect Whom They Want?

  • Mathematics and the Dark Mattery Mystery

• 

  Simon Levin
  Princeton University
  March 31 - April 1

  • Cooperation in the Global Commons

  • Collective Phenomena, Collective Motion, and Scaling in Ecological Systems

Fall 2015

• 

  Lani Wu and Steven Altschuler
  University of California, San Francisco
  October 22 - 23

  • Symmetry Breaking in Yeast: Can Mathematics Provide Novel Biological Insights?

  • Cellular Heterogeneity: Differences That Make a Difference in Cancer and Drug Treatment

• 

  Kevin Short
  University of New Hampshire
  October 7 - 8

  • The Math Behind the Music

  • Cupolets in Chaos, Not Verse

Spring 2015

• 

  Bernd Sturmfels
  University of California, Berkeley
  April 8 - 10

  • Tropical Mathematics

  • Beyond Linear Algebra

  • Exponential Varieties

• 

  Jesse Johnson
  Google, Inc. and Oklahoma State University
  March 25 - 27

  • Hidden Geometry in Modern (Big) Data Analysis

  • From Discrete to Continuous: Inferring Scale and Topology

  • Applying Geometric Intuition to Data Analysis

Fall 2014

• 

  Susan Landau
  Worcester Polytechnic Institute
  October 22 - 24

  • What’s Significant in the NSA Revelations

  • Cryptography and Privacy — and the Role for Mathematicians

• 

  Lawrence Washington
  University of Maryland
  September 30 - October 2

  • Cannonballs, Donuts, and Secrets: An Introduction to Elliptic Curve Cryptography

  • Manipulating Encrypted Data

  • The Mathematics behind Quantum Computing

Spring 2014

• 

  Hubert Bray
  Duke University
  April 23 - 25

  • From Pythagoras to Einstein: The Geometry of Space and Time

  • On Dark Matter, Galaxies, and the Large-Scale Geometry of the Universe

  • Black Holes and the Monotonicity of the Hawking Mass for Time Flat Surfaces

• 

  Leon Glass
  McGill University
  April 2 - 4

  • Chaotic Music and Fractal Art: A Glimpse into the Neurophysiology of Aesthetics

  • Dynamical Disease: From Theory to Practical Applications

  • Evolution and Robustness in Gene Networks

Fall 2013

• 

  Gilbert Strang
  Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  October 14 - 15

  • Online Instruction and Random Triangles

  • Tridiagonal Matrices : Their Exponentials and Completions

• 

  Ken Golden
  University of Utah
  September 26 - 27

  • Mathematics and the melting polar ice caps

  • Homogenization for Sea Ice

Spring 2013

• 

  Mauro Maggioni
  Duke University
  April 17 - 18

  • Geometry and Analysis of High-Dimensional Data

  • Multiscale Methods for High-Dimensional Data and Graphs

• 

  Gunnar Carlsson
  Stanford University
  March 21 - 22

  • The Shape of Data

  • Persistent Homology with Examples

  • Generalized Persistence and Mapping Data

Fall 2012

• 

  Tony DeRose
  Pixar Animation Studios
  October 3 - 4

  • How Mathematics Has Changed Hollywood

  • Wavelets in Computer Graphics

Spring 2012

• 

  Adrien Treuille
  Carnegie Mellon University
  March 7 - 8

  • Interactive Biology

  • New Approaches to Modeling and Control of Complex Dynamics

Fall 2009

• 

  Robert Ghrist
  University of Pennsylvania
  October 21 - 23

  • Mathematical Sensors

  • Euler Calculus for Data

  • Algebraic Topology in the Engineering Sciences