Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the University has instruction to cancel all in-person events through the Spring semester to adhere to city and state orders limiting public gatherings. Events still running must now take place Online— listed events will include a link in which one may access the Online webspace.

Marden Lecture in Mathematics: A Modern Approach to Simulating Flight

Dr. Ridgway Scott
Emeritus Professor of Mathematics
University of Chicago

“The Annual Marden Lecture in Mathematics presents L. Ridgway Scott, Professor emeritus of Computer Science and Mathematics at the University of Chicago. The Marden Lecture brings math topics to the general public. This lecture will be accessible to all, and advanced mathematical knowledge is not required.

This year’s topic focuses on flight – a subject of curiosity for centuries. Scientists have attempted to explain it, yet until recently serious flaws in the explanation, and corresponding mathematical theories, kept computational simulations from being used in the critical path of aircraft design. We will describe a complete revision of the classical approach and some of the current applications. In particular, we will leverage a new method for assessing hydrodynamic instability. We will explain the role of this pillar of the recent developments to give some insight into the advances. We will see that these developments reflect a major shift in mathematics, initiated a century ago, that is continuing to impact technology.

Dr. Scott has published over 180 papers and 5 books related to biophysics, parallel computing, and fundamental computational aspects of structural mechanics, fluid dynamics, nuclear engineering, and computational chemistry. This includes his pioneering work on the finite element method for solving partial differential equations. He has been the Louis Block Professor at the University of Chicago since 2001.”

This event will take place over Zoom from 4:00pm – 5:00pm CST, to access the webspace please click here and join using the passcode 218477.