We'll study the growth of (two-dimensional) things. Think about lichen growing on a tree (tends to be sort of round). Another fun example is electricity propagating through wood (tends to be sort of fractal). A famous and still very mysterious model is called DLA: it forms the most beautiful fractal patterns (pictures will be provided).…

Quantum computers are physical machines that process information using the principles of quantum mechanics, which in turn is underpinned by linear algebra. The talk will start with a review of Lie algebras (consisting of matrices under the operation of commutator) and their role in quantum mechanics. The dynamical Lie algebra (DLA) of a quantum system…

Minimal surfaces are fundamental geometric objects which have been studied intensively since the 1700's. Classes of minimal surfaces of particular interest are the complete embedded ones in Euclidean space, closed (compact boundaryless) embedded in the round three-sphere, free boundary compact embedded ones in the unit Euclidean three-ball, and self-shrinkers of the mean curvature flow. Since…