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Update:  Due to the weather and the closing of the University on Jan. 28th, Frank Morgan’s talks are rescheduled for February 18th.

Here at OU Math Blog HQ we’re very excited about our third Math Club event of 2010.  On

Thursday, Febuary 18th

there is not one, but two talks by Dr. Frank Morgan of Williams College (and pizza, of course!).

Dr. Morgan in action! (Photo courtesy of Jeff Bauer of Citco)

Why are we so excited?  And, more importantly, why should you be excited?  Well, there’s a list for that!

1. Dr. Morgan does cool math.  He works in minimal surfaces (e.g. the shape soap bubbles on various wire shapes) and studies the behavior and structure of minimizers in various dimensions and settings.
   

   Photo by John M. Sullivan, Technical University of Berlin and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

2. He is famous for his skills in talking about interesting math.  He’s even had a TV show called Math Chat!  Check out the book which came from his TV show is here.
3. His first talk (at 4 pm in PHSC 1105) is about the famous Poincare Conjecture, which we’ve talked about here.  The title and abstract is:

“From Soap Bubbles to the Poincaré Conjecture”

Abstract:  A single round soap bubble provides the least-area way to enclose a given volume. How does the solution change if space is given some symmetric positive density like r^2 or e^-r^2 that weights both area and volume? Such densities appear prominently in Perelman’s paper proving the Poincaré Conjecture. No prerequisites; undergraduates welcome.

4. His second talk (at 5 pm in PHSC 1105) is about math and baseball, which we’ve talked about here.  The title and abstract is:

“Baserunner’s Optimal Path”

Abstract:  When you hit that final long ball in the World Series of Baseball and know you need the home run, what is your optimal path around the bases?

5. Last, but not least, Dr. Morgan is a fellow math blogger!

Although talented, Frank Morgan is no wizard:

The other Frank Morgan

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