The Scientific Visualization Seminar will meet this Wednesday
13 October at 3:35pm in room 102 Love.


Our speaker will be Ken Stephenson U Tenn Knoxville
Speaking on: "Circle Packing: A Tale of Visualization in Pure Mathematics"


Abstract: "Circle Packings" were introduced by Thurston in the 
purest of research: the geometry of 3-manifolds. This is a story
of how an innocent complex analyst was seduced by this topic, and
then by the glitter of experimentation and visualization. What are
the contributions/challenges/frustrations/opportunities of this new
world for the besotted? It's pure mathematics of a new sort, with a  
fundamental and productive experimental component.
 
My presentation begins (if the gods are willing) with a live demo of
the software package "CirclePack", followed by a brief pictoral survey
of the current state of the art. There are many issues regarding
future directions, so I hope to involve the participants in some 
brain-storming: research/application opportunities? computer
languages/visualization software? interactive web sites, electronic
books? support? how a pure mathematician can hope to manage such an
enterprise?

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Some Upcoming Talks: (Some Tentative)
20 Oct: Jorge Vinals, FSU SCRI
10 Nov: Moncia Hurdal, FSU Math 
1 Dec: Gordon Erlebacher, FSU Math, Powerwall Demo.