Fowler 202

Demands to return cultural treasures to their homelands are nothing new—but today they’re louder and more urgent than ever. Supporters of repatriation usually make two claims: (1) these objects are essential to the identity and history of the communities they come from, and (2) many were removed unjustly and often violently. Returning them, then, is not just about moving artifacts from one museum to another; it’s about acknowledging and repairing historical harm, challenging the legacy of colonialism and other forms of imperialism, and trying to reverse time itself.

Join the Physics Department for a talk with future Occidental faculty, astrophysicist Dr. Dustin R. Madison. We will have light refreshments beginning at 4:30pm.

On the Hunt for Gravitational Memory

In this talk we’ll try to determine the shortest paths between any two points in the Sierpiński carpet and in related fractals, including the 3-dimensional Menger sponge, which has an approximation shown in green.  Along the way, we’ll highlight recent research results in this area and discuss several open problems that are ripe for exploration.  This talk is based on joint work with Ethan Berkove and several undergraduate students.

A fundamental problem in understanding the behavior of convex sets is understanding how they intersect. In this talk, we show how systems of polynomial equations can help us with this problem, and learn about the fascinating motivation of this pure mathematical work from neuroscience. 

Campaign Semester participants remain fully enrolled at Occidental and earn a full semester of college credit (16 units) for volunteering full-time in a Presidential, U.S. Senate, U.S. House, or gubernatorial campaign for 10 weeks during the fall semester. After Election Day, students will return to the Occidental campus and participate in a five-week seminar that involves reading and discussion in order to put them in a broader context.  

Campaign Semester participants remain fully enrolled at Occidental and earn a full semester of college credit (16 units) for volunteering full-time in a Presidential, U.S. Senate, U.S. House, or gubernatorial campaign for 10 weeks during the fall semester. After Election Day, students will return to the Occidental campus and participate in a five-week seminar that involves reading and discussion in order to put them in a broader context.  

The fact that 85% of the gravitating mass in the universe is invisible is one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in fundamental physics today. If this dark matter was not present, galaxies would fly apart and the universe would not develop the right amount of structure at the right time for you to exist and attend this colloquium. Despite its abundance, dark matter has yet to be directly detected in experiments on Earth. Why?

Many of us are familiar with how to slice a cake ensuring equal sized slices for all.  But what about those of us who want an equal amount of frosting as well?!  This question is a classic with the problem solvers amongst us.  In 1975, Martin Gardner considered a square cake cut into 7 pieces in his Scientific American column.  More than a decade earlier, H.S.M.

Alex Sutherland, University of California, Irvine