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Math & Stats Department Colloquium
Friday, March 21, 2025

Time: 2:30 p.m.  Place: Jeffery Hall, Room 234

Speaker: Cy Maor (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Title: Non-Euclidean Elasticity - From the Shapes of Leaves to (Almost) Isometric Immersions and Back

Abstract: Non-Euclidean elasticity concerns elastic bodies that are strained even in the absence of external forces. While its origins trace back to the 1950s, the field gained renewed attention in the 21st century as a framework for understanding the shapes of leaves, molecular structures, and other systems undergoing inhomogeneous growth. Mathematically, it studies the question of how to immerse 3D Riemannian manifolds in ℝ^3 "as isometric as possible" (in a precise sense). In this talk, I will introduce the model and discuss the mathematical questions it raises—some resolved, many still open. There will be pictures, there will be theorems, and, hopefully, even a live experiment.