Applied Mathematics Undergraduate Seminar (AMUSE)
"When am I ever going to use this?"
The purpose of this seminar is to introduce undergraduates to applications of mathematics: finance, engineering, biology, physics. It is attended by undergraduates at all levels, as well as occasional graduate students and faculty.
Talks by faculty, graduate students, and professionals are generally in the ballpark of 45-55 minutes long, which leaves plenty of time for questions. The first 15-20 minutes of a talk should be accessible to freshmen students in their first year of calculus. If the entire talk can be made accessible to freshmen, that is much appreciated. We can also split the hour so that two people can speak.
AMUSE is also happy to host undergraduate student talks that are accessible to this audience. These talks are often the highlight of the semester, and we hope they encourage more undergraduates to get involved with research! Generally we schedule several students to speak in one evening, so each one only needs to speak for 10-15 minutes.
If you would like to speak, or have suggestions for a speaker that would give an engaging talk to an undergraduate audience, please email Kamran Reihani, reihani@tamu.edu.
If you would like to involve undergraduates in your research program, we'd love to have you introduce them to your topic via this seminar.
AMUSE Talk #1 Speaker: Dr. Xin Liu
Title: From ODEs to shock formation
When: Tuesday, February 3, 6 – 7 PM
Where: Blocker 302
Abstract: Shock formation is one of the most common and important phenomena in fluid dynamics and traffic flow. The understanding of the shock formation, including the location, the occurring time, and the strength of the shock, has critical application in the design of jet engines and highways. While the full system of equations is extremely complicated, the fundamental model is relatively simple. In this talk, we will discuss the Burgers equation, the transport equation, and the Riccati equation, which model the mechanism of the shock formation at different levels.