• Reflections on hyperbolic space 

      [SNAP-2021-007-EN] Haensch, Anna (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2021-08-24)
      In school, we learn that the interior angles of any triangle sum up to pi. However, there exist spaces different from the usual Euclidean space in which this is not true. One of these spaces is the ''hyperbolic space'', ...
    • Spaces of Riemannian metrics 

      [SNAP-2017-010-EN] Bustamante, Mauricio; Kordaß, Jan-Bernhard (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2017-12-28)
      Riemannian metrics endow smooth manifolds such as surfaces with intrinsic geometric properties, for example with curvature. They also allow us to measure quantities like distances, angles and volumes. These are the ...
    • Swallowtail on the shore 

      [SNAP-2014-007-EN] Buchweitz, Ragnar-Olaf; Faber, Eleonore (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2014)
      Platonic solids, Felix Klein, H.S.M. Coxeter and a flap of a swallowtail: The five Platonic solids tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, icosahedron and dodecahedron have always attracted much curiosity from mathematicians, not ...
    • 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 ...
    • Touching the transcendentals: tractional motion from the bir th of calculus to future perspectives 

      [SNAP-2019-013-EN] Milici, Pietro (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2019-11-21)
      When the rigorous foundation of calculus was developed, it marked an epochal change in the approach of mathematicians to geometry. Tools from geometry had been one of the foundations of mathematics until the 17th century ...
    • 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 ...
    • Vertex-to-self trajectories on the platonic solids 

      [SNAP-2020-003-EN] Athreya, Jayadev S.; Aulicino, David (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2020-04-15)
      We consider the problem of walking in a straight line on the surface of a Platonic solid. While the tetrahedron, octahedron, cube, and icosahedron all exhibit the same behavior, we find a remarkable difference with the ...
    • Waves and Incidences 

      [SNAP-2024-001-EN] Yung, Po-Lam (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2024-04-09)
      The wave equation in Euclidean spaces describes many natural phenomena such as sound, light, or water waves. We explore how its solutions are related to the geometric problem of how long thin cylinders can intersect each ...
    • What is pattern? 

      [SNAP-2022-009-EN] Baake, Michael; Grimm, Uwe; Moody, Robert V. (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2022-10-25)
      Pattern is ubiquitous and seems totally familiar. Yet if we ask what it is, we find a bewildering collection of answers. Here we suggest that there is a common thread, and it revolves around dynamics.
    • The Willmore Conjecture 

      [SNAP-2016-011-EN] Nowaczyk, Nikolai (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2016)
      The Willmore problem studies which torus has the least amount of bending energy. We explain how to think of a torus as a donut-shaped surface and how the intuitive notion of bending has been studied by mathematics over time.
    • Winkeltreue zahlt sich aus 

      [SNAP-2017-001-DE] Günther, Felix (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2017-08-23)
      Nicht nur Seefahrerinnen, auch Computergrafikerinnen und Physikerinnen wissen Winkeltreue zu schätzen. Doch beschränkte Rechenkapazitäten und Vereinfachungen in theoretischen Modellen erfordern es, winkeltreue Abbildungen ...
    • Zero-dimensional symmetry 

      [SNAP-2015-003-EN] Willis, George (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2015)
      This snapshot is about zero-dimensional symmetry. Thanks to recent discoveries we now understand such symmetry better than previously imagined possible. While still far from complete, a picture of zero-dimensional symmetry ...
    • Zopfgruppen, die Yang–Baxter-Gleichung und Unterfaktoren 

      [SNAP-2021-005-DE] Lechner, Gandalf (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, 2021-06-24)
      Die Yang–Baxter-Gleichung ist eine faszinierende Gleichung, die in vielen Gebieten der Physik und der Mathematik auftritt und die am besten diagrammatisch dargestellt wird. Dieser Snapshot schlägt einen weiten Bogen ...