Colloquia Schedule

Thursdays, 4pm to 5pm - Cotton Club (CO350)

Tea at 3:30pm

The School of Mathematics and Statistics (SMS) at Victoria University of Wellington organizes a “Mathematics and Statistics Colloquium”. The colloquium is intended to create a link between the members of the SMS. The talks are focused mainly but not limited to the following research areas: discrete mathematics, theoretical computer science, logic, analysis, geometry, number theory, applied mathematics, theoretical physics, numerical analysis, mathematical modelling, actuarial science, financial mathematics, Bayesian statistics, categorical data, probability theory and stochastic processes, statistical modelling, estimation and testing.


Next event


5-8 December 2016

New Zealand Mathematical Society Colloquium

Run by the New Zealand Mathematical Society

The 2016 Colloquium will be hosted by Victoria University of Wellington, (Kelburn campus) from Monday 5 December to Thursday 8 December. Thursday will be dedicated to Mathematics Education and may be registered for separately from the remainder of the colloquium. There will be a reception for attendees on the evening of Sunday 4 December 2016.

The annual Colloquium brings together the mathematical community of New Zealand while welcoming overseas visitors to join us.

Time will be dedicated to the discussion of all aspects of pure and applied mathematics and statistics. Talks will be given by internationally recognised leaders in the field and also by emerging researchers and postgraduate students.


6 December 2016

Quasars, Black Holes and Gravitational Waves

In 1963 it was realised that certain radio "stars" were enormously powerful objects in far distant galaxies, but the mechanism that drove them was a mystery. Serendipitously, I discovered the unique solution for rotating black holes at this time and it was fairly quickly realised that the accretion disc around one of these could supply the necessary energy. Since then we have observed such supermassive black holes at the centre of most large galaxies.

The most energetic objects in the universe are GRBs (Gamma Ray Bursters). These are generally considered to be hypernova from a very massive rotating star collapsing to a Black hole. However another theory is that they are caused by mergers of massive neutron stars or black holes.

In the last year Ligo has observed mergers of three pairs of rotating black holes, each 10-40 solar masses. The gravitational waves from these have been compared to templates calculated by a mixture of numerical and analytic solutions of Einstein's equations for such events.

What: The Australian and New Zealand Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ANZIAM) lecture from Emeritus Professor Roy Kerr

When: 5.30pm, Tuesday 6 December

Where: Lecture Theatre 1, Rutherford House, 23 Lambton Quay, Wellington

RSVP: Email Kelsey Firmin at kelsey.firmin@vuw.ac.nz or phone 04-463 5651


Schedule

THU

21 Jul

Andrew C. Fowler, University of Oxford and University of Limerick

Predicting the unpredictable: drumlins, exploding rocks, worms, landslides

THU

11 Aug

Dimitrios Mitsotakis, Victoria University of Wellington

Nonlinear and dispersive wave equations with applications

THU

18 Aug

George Barmpalias, Victoria University of Wellington]

Minority population in one-dimensional Schelling model of segregation

THU

15 Sep

Peter Smith, Victoria University of Wellington

Random Electromagnetic Rays: Models, Design and Analysis

THU

29 Sep

Lisa Clark, University of Otago

Two abstract supermodels: groupoids and Steinberg algebras

THU

13 Oct

David Balduzzi, Victoria University of Wellington

Strongly-Typed Games