one cavatappo
3 geodesic (autoparallel) curves on the cavatappo surface
dedicated to the memory of Fang Lizhi
Everyone (not literally) knows Einstein was the father of general relativity, our current best theory of gravity and of the universe on large scales, but it was a pair of Italian mathematicians who played a crucial role in making it possible. The geometry of the cavatappi pasta surface thus seems a fitting metaphor for how curved spacetime makes particles move and the importance of symmetry in studying solutions of the equations which govern their motion, both of which are also key in the mathematical cosmology made possible by the geometry explored by another Italian mathematician. These ideas capture a bit of the flavor of my more than three decades of USA-Italy academic commuting. [Talk for a nonscience audience.]
More hype from dr bob... [Falvey
library page] [tricolor graphic poster][Falvey
web banner] [dr
bob pasta pic]
[no overlap with
2011 fall lunch talk or 2011 fall physics talk][no
fancy costumes]
Scroll down to the bottom of
the page for the You Tube talk video and accompanying webpage files!
ACS credit?? PLEASE DO NOT COME if you are not truly interested in mathematics.
ACS credit kept me out of
Noam Chomsky's Peace Award Talk (2002) because hundreds of students who had no clue
who he was showed up for credit before we arrived delayed by unexpected crazy traffic on
Lancaster Ave!!!!!!!!!
|
|
|
|
one cavatappo |
3 geodesic (autoparallel) curves on the cavatappo surface |
*
Formerly Guglielmo Marconi Institute, now Building, joined by the Enrico Fermi
Building
(father of wireless radio transmission, father of controlled
nuclear fission)
Part 1:
Intro and Historical Background
gr-cosmology-italy.mw [Talk starts here: continuation of
this web page, historical overview] [HTML version]<<<<<<<
This is important link 2!
Part 2:
Geodesics as Autoparallel Curves: In Space and in Spacetime
geodesics.mw [21 MB! the mathematics, via cute
graphics][HTML
version] <<<<<<< This is important link
3!
The You Tube video only records dr bob and not the screen, which
you can sort of follow along in the HTML version, not the best solution, but
better than no video at all.
The Maple worksheets (.mw files) require the Maple
program to view, but one can then interact with the graphics, rotating the 3d
images and zooming in on them at will as bob did during
the talk.
The HTML output uses frames, so you click on the left frame margin on the links
in the table of contents to advance your way through the document, after
scrolling through each web page.
for the mathematically inclined:
"Geodesics on Surfaces with Helical Symmetry:
Cavatappi Geometry," (2012)
not directly used in talk: cavatappomeridian.mw [orthogonal
geodesics]
Cavatappo 2.0: More of the Same but
Better (2013 in progress)
(Chris Rorres inspired tilted cavatappo surface, plus
relativistic pasta!)
Geodesics on the Torus
a special case when the inclination angle of the helix with respect to the
horizontal goes to zero [animation]
from: gravity orbits and donut
geodesics: the same problem nicely handled by Maple
some history:
This talk was the final installment of my 2011 Outstanding Faculty Research Award experience:
2011 Faculty Research Award private lunch talk Fall 2011 [prop]
Library Blog interview and hype for the talk: How Spacetime is Like Italian Food: Dr. Robert Jantzen Explains (by Alexandra Edwards)
talk poster by
Joanne Quinn design specialist, Falvey Library
