| Speaker: Barbara Keyfitz Affiliation: Ohio State University Time: 4:00 pm Thursday, 30 March, 2017 Location: 302-G20 |
| Hyperbolic partial differential equations, such as the wave equation, are a mainstay of analysis. Aside from their engineering and technological importance (think acoustics, think electromagnetics), they have motivated interesting advances in functional analysis, such as distribution theory. But analysis has not been able to answer even the most basic questions once one admits the least amount of nonlinearlity into one's models, for example to study the dynamics of compressible gases, or surface waves on the ocean. In this talk, I will give an informal introduction to the theory of linear hyperbolic equations, assuming no background, and will show how the tools that are so effective for linear problems fail for nonlinear equations. The talk will show how new techniques have been developed specifically to answer nonlinear questions, and will summarize the progress that has been made in meeting these challenges. Barbara Lee Keyfitz is the Dr. Charles Saltzer Professor of Mathematics at the Ohio State University, which she joined in January 2009, after 21 years at the University of Houston and four and a half years as Director of the Fields Institute in Toronto, Canada. |