• Data assimilation: mathematics for merging models and data 

      [SNAP-2018-011-EN] Morzfeld, Matthias; Reich, Sebastian (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2018-07-10)
      When you describe a physical process, for example, the weather on Earth, or an engineered system, such as a self-driving car, you typically have two sources of information. The first is a mathematical model, and the ...
    • Estimating the volume of a convex body 

      [SNAP-2018-015-EN] Baldin, Nicolai (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2018-12-30)
      Sometimes the volume of a convex body needs to be estimated, if we cannot calculate it analytically. We explain how statistics can be used not only to approximate the volume of the convex body, but also its shape.
    • Fast Solvers for Highly Oscillatory Problems 

      [SNAP-2018-006-EN] Barnett, Alex (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2018-06-26)
      Waves of diverse types surround us. Sound, light and other waves, such as microwaves, are crucial for speech, mobile phones, and other communication technologies. Elastic waves propagating through the Earth bounce ...
    • Geometry behind one of the Painlevé III differential equations 

      [SNAP-2018-010-EN] Hertling, Claus (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2018-06-20)
      The Painlevé equations are second order differential equations, which were first studied more than 100 years ago. Nowadays they arise in many areas in mathematics and mathematical physics. This snapshot discusses the ...
    • The mathematics of aquatic locomotion 

      [SNAP-2018-008-EN] Tucsnak, Marius (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2018-06-19)
      Aquatic locomotion is a self-propelled motion through a liquid medium. It can be of biological nature (fish, microorganisms,. . .) or performed by robotic swimmers. This snapshot aims to introduce the reader to some ...
    • Mixed volumes and mixed integrals 

      [SNAP-2018-014-EN] Rotem, Liran (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2018-12-29)
      In recent years, mathematicians have developed new approaches to study convex sets: instead of considering convex sets themselves, they explore certain functions or measures that are related to them. Problems from ...
    • Number theory in quantum computing 

      [SNAP-2018-012-EN] Schönnenbeck, Sebastian (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2018-08-07)
      Algorithms are mathematical procedures developed to solve a problem. When encoded on a computer, algorithms must be "translated" to a series of simple steps, each of which the computer knows how to do. This task is ...
    • Prony’s method: an old trick for new problems 

      [SNAP-2018-004-EN] Sauer, Tomas (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2018-03-06)
      In 1795, French mathematician Gaspard de Prony invented an ingenious trick to solve a recovery problem, aiming at reconstructing functions from their values at given points, which arose from a specific application in ...
    • A short story on optimal transport and its many applications 

      [SNAP-2018-013-EN] Santambrogio, Filippo (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2018-08-08)
      We present some examples of optimal transport problems and of applications to different sciences (logistics, economics, image processing, and a little bit of evolution equations) through the crazy story of an industrial ...
    • Topological Complexity, Robotics and Social Choice 

      [SNAP-2018-005-EN] Carrasquel, José; Lupton, Gregory; Oprea, John (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2018-08-10)
      Topological complexity is a number that measures how hard it is to plan motions (for robots, say) in terms of a particular space associated to the kind of motion to be planned. This is a burgeoning subject within the ...
    • Topological recursion 

      [SNAP-2018-002-EN] Sułkowski, Piotr (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2018-03-05)
      In this snapshot we present the concept of topological recursion – a new, surprisingly powerful formalism at the border of mathematics and physics, which has been actively developed within the last decade. After introducing ...
    • Tropical geometry 

      [SNAP-2018-007-EN] Brugallé, Erwan; Itenberg, Ilia; Shaw, Kristin; Viro, Oleg (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2018-07-19)
      What kind of strange spaces hide behind the enigmatic name of tropical geometry? In the tropics, just as in other geometries, one of the simplest objects is a line. Therefore, we begin our exploration by considering tropical ...