Nature's Shapes and Patterns and the Instabilities That Create Them

November 22, 2020

It could be argued that mathematics was born with the purpose of making sense of nature's patterns. The mathematics of simple and regular shapes was developed first, and with great success, so much so that predictable regularity and mathematics have become somewhat synonymous in common speech. But, unbeknownst to most of the general public, mathematicians have long been working at conceptual tools for making sense of nature’s irregular, never-repeating, and time-changing patterns.

This talk illustrates some examples and general ideas stemming from the theory of instability, one of the most powerful ways to understand why natural phenomena look the way they do.

Speaker
Francesco Paparella, Associate Professor of Mathematics, NYUAD