Lectures 2014

by Sasha Abanov

Quantum Hall Effect (QHE) is one of the most fascinating discoveries in condensed matter physics in XX century. In this lecture I will try to explain the effect in elementary terms. We will talk about the concepts of quasiparticles, quantization, localization of electrons on impurities, charge fractionalization etc. From its discovery QHE lead to two Nobel prizes and strongly influenced many branches of modern physics and mathematics.

by Marina Polonskaia

Zombie Creatures: What Happens When Animals Are Possessed by a Parasitic Puppet Master? From fungi to flies, some parasitic species have figured out how to control their host's behavior to get what they need.

by Mark Lukin

Modern genetic engineering would be impossible without development of the universal tools that allow researchers to 'cut and paste' long DNA fragments. However, these instruments had not been developed by scientists from scratch. They were taken from living organisms. During this lecture, we will talk about the original role these mechanisms play in living cells, and about their application in genetic engineering. This lecture also serves as a theoretical introduction into the "From gene to protein..." semilab.

by Mark Lukin

How reliably is our hereditary information stored in cells? What happens if DNA, our universal information storage, breaks? What causes DNA breaks? What are their consequences? Is smoking really harmful and why? Is there anything else you need to know to decrease the risk of cancer?

by Boris Podobedov

Accelerator-based light sources produce exceptionally intense beams of X-rays, ultra-violet and infrared light, making possible both basic and applied research in fields ranging from physics to biology and technology. Some of the more novel light sources cost upwards of $1Bn, and yet governments around the world keep investing this kind of money. Why are they doing it? What are these unique properties of light that these light sources provide, and why they are not achievable with your typical flashlight or even a powerful laser? This lecture will answer these questions as well explain how the synchrotron light sources work.

by Vicka Bershadsky

Discover the secrets of the artists guilds of the Renaissance and beyond that all the members we sworn to protect. Were they just artists expressing their views and emotions, or were they the high tech disruptors, same as Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg of today? See how much technology did Renaissance and the Ancient artists really use.

by Sasha kirillov

If one makes a list of population of all the towns on Earth, it turns out that there are a lot more towns with population between 100,000-200,000 than 200,000 - 300,000. In fact, if we look at the first digit of the population number, than digit one is more common than 2, and 2 is more common than 3. And the same phenomenon happens for many other quantiites, from river lengths to electric bills amounts to physical constants. And if some numbers do not follow that rule, it may be an evidence that these numbers are fake - this was used to detect fraud in tax returns and election results.

In this lcture we show why this rule (called Benford's law) works and discuss its applications. This is intended for older students; some familiarity with logarithms is expected.

by Konstantin Khrapko

We will explore what is aging (and what is not) and critically discuss the mainstream hypotheses seeking to explain the reasons, causes and mechanisms of the aging process. We will talk about people, mice, and naked mole rats and ask whether there is a limit to human lifespan. We will even investigate what for infamous Bluebeard killed his countless young wives.

by Dmitri Kharzeev

Chirality (or "handedness") is a ubiquitous notion in science, from biology to cosmology. It holds the key to understanding some mysteries of the quantum world, and opens amazing possibilties for modern science and tomorrow's technologies.

by Igor Zaliznyak

Why does the curve ball curve? How does boomerang fly? What do the chimney and an airplane have in common? How does spray atomizer function? The Bernoulli effect is something we frequently experience in our everyday life, albeit rarely notice. We shall explore these and other questions by understanding why and how the Bernoulli principle works. Hands-on demonstrations will include a simple Magnus-effect-flyer and unusual forces created by moving air.

by Igor Zaliznyak

Archimedes of Syracuse, an ancient Greek mathematician, but also a physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer, was perhaps the greatest mathematician and scientist of all times. His ingenious synthesis of physical and mathematical methods leads to remarkable mathematical discoveries. They have anticipated the modern symbiosis of mathematics and mechanics, and withstood the test of time of thousands of years. In this lecture I will discuss some of the Archimedes' remarkable achievements, and bits of history related to them.

by Yuri Salkinder

How do people make decisions? Why do we procrastinate? What happens when social norms and market norms overlap? The questions to these and many other similarly intriguing questions is the subject of behavioral economics, a branch of science on the border between psychology and economics.

by Helmut Strey

I will talk about what people refer to as the third industrial revolution, argue that Marx was wrong, and explain how to mass produce your gadgets without putting up much of your own money.

by Lilianne R. Mujica-Parodi

Why do some people thrive under pressure and others fall apart? Can we predict how an individual will behave during a crisis? These are questions that my neuroscience laboratory has worked on, with applications for the development of screening and training protocols for some of the highest-stress professions that exist: from Navy SEAL commandos, to bomb squad technicians who defuse nuclear explosives, to intelligence analysts. In my talk, I'll explain our latest thinking--based upon control and complex systems--about how the brain regulates emotion, as well as discussing implications for how emotion affects decision-making. Finally, I'll present some surprising evidence that explains why dogs (and you!) can smell fear.

by Oxana Litvine

It was shown, that memory can be pharmacologically disrupted long time after learning event. This experimental data contradicted consolidation theory, which stated that memory is vulnerable only during short period of time right after learning, however was in agreement with some psychological observations about changing memory during long time. Originally discovered in 1960s and re-discovered in 1990s, this phenomenon is now used to develop new treatments for drug addiction.

by Sergei Maslov

We are ultimate complex systems ourselves and are surrounded by other complex systems in nature, technology, and society. Genomes, gene and neural networks, species, ecosystems evolve—and technological and social systems evolve too! Many (but not all) complex systems are also subject to sophisticated regulation and control. I will describe a few examples of complex systems in biological, technological, and social systems focusing on the interplay between regulation and randomness in their evolution. My talk will also highlight the current trend in scientific research shifting from studies of parts and pieces to complex systems as a whole. As a result of this transition science becomes more and more interdisciplinary with projects routinely crossing the boundaries between traditional scientific disciplines.

by Tatiana Pyatina

The lecture will cover the history, technology, craft and architectural expressions in the invention and use of concrete. The best and the worst examples of its use over the ages will be presented by famous and obscure characters. The story will be illustrated with cartoons and a small demonstration.

by Dennis Sullivan

If you watch old western movies the wagon wheels are turning and turning and at some point they seem to be reversing directions. There is a picture about fractions which can explain this. What do you think the picture of the fraction 2/5 is? It is a five pointed start which is traced out in the clockwise direction. And the picture of the fraction 3/5 is the same five pointed start traced out in the opposite direction.

These pictures of fractions are examples of mathematical ideas called circular ordering of points, or more generally, the orbits of a dynamical system.

Another example of orbit of a dynamical system is an interesting curve generated by a famous mathematician Bill Thurston and I will discuss how this curve can be viewed as a dynamical system. These two discussions are united by a third discussion called continued fractions.

by Moira Chas

Symmetries appear in many forms in our world. We can find them in beehive, in an orange, in our own human shape. Mirrors create fantastic symmetries and symmetry is part of the essence of many art works. We walk daily over symmetric tiles and often eat food that has some form of symmetry. In this hour, I’ll discuss symmetries from a mathematical point of view. A mathematician looks at symmetries and finds ways to classify them and produce a list of symmetries that satisfy certain conditions. For instance, there are exactly 17 types of symmetries in standard wallpapers (there are of course an infinity of patterns, but exactly 17 ways of repeating them on the wall). I’ll discuss each of these types of symmetries and try to explain why there are only 17.

by Lawrence Hobbie

In this lecture, Dr. Lawrence Hobbie (professor of biology at Adelphi University) will discuss the science behind genetically-modified crop plants: how the genetic modification happens, what kinds of genetically-modified crops currently exist and are being developed, and why these plants are controversial.

by Dima Kozakov

The lecture provides an introduction to the proteins - major molecular building blocks of the living cells. We will focus on the physical-chemical basis of protein structure and function, including signal transduction, enzymatic catalysis, and gene regulation. The problems and current approaches to predicting protein structure including those using homology, energy minimization and modeling will be introduced. The future implications of our expanding biomolecular knowledge and of rational drug design will also be discussed.

by Maxim Kontsevich

In tropical algebra one can add and multiply numbers, but the subtraction is forbidden. Also one has a strange rule A+A=A for any A. I will explain how to use tropical algebra for algberaic equations on usual nontropical numbers with very large or very small coefficients. Tropical curves given by a tropical equation are bizarre spiderweb-like figures. Even the usual line X+Y=1 became a three-legged creature. I will explain how to draw tropical curves, and how they are related to complex numbers.

by Alexei Tkachenko

A Drunken Sailor is walking the streets of Manhattan, making random turns. Little does he know that his Random Walk is a famous problem that had strong impact on modern Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, Computer Science, and Financial Markets. This problem was a subject of Einstein's thesis, and of his most cited scientific papers. In this lecture, I will talk about the Random Walk Problem and the phenomenon of diffusion. As an example of its many uses, I will connect this problem to the physics of polymers, and the notion of fractals.