The Discrete Charm of Geometry

Overview

How is modern mathematical teamwork carried out?

The multiple award-winning film The Discrete Charm of Geometry by Ekaterina Eremenko will screen on April 3rd after the CEMSE Dean's Distinguished Lecture Discrete conformal mappings and Riemann Surfaces: Theory and Applications by Prof. Alexander I. Bobenko, Technische Universität Berlin. Following the screening, Prof. Bobenko will be available for a Q&A session.

Synopsis

A team of mathematicians is working together on a big project. Excitement of discovery, hope and disappointment, competition and recognition are shown from an infinitely close distance. Scientists united by the idea of discretization, which, in short, means: constructing continuous objects from basic building blocks. Akin to the scientists’ search for the right discretization of continuum, this film itself is composed of fragments – individual characters of different ages, temperaments and scientific approaches – which form a single continuous melody. The question of where the boundaries lie between mathematics and the lives of those who are involved in it and how much they are willing to sacrifice is as important as the search for precise scientific answers. A unique and unprecedented dive into the unknown world of mathematicians.

Brief Biography

Alexander Bobenko is a professor of mathematics at the Technical University of Berlin. He received his PhD in mathematical physics from Steklov Mathematical Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1985. His fields of interest include geometry, mathematical physics and their applications, in particular discrete differential geometry, integrable systems and visualization. He is an author of several mathematical books and animation films. Bobenko is a director of the DFG Collaboration Center "Discretization in Geometry and Dynamics".