Research Highlights
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Establishing a Theoretical Understanding of Machine Learning
September 2019Program at IAS aims to explain the why and how of algorithms with enormous power “It’s kind of like physics in its formative stages—Newton asking what makes the apple fall down,” says Sanjeev Arora, Visiting Professor in the Institute for Advanced Study’s School of Mathematics, trying to explain the current scientific excitement about machine learning. […]
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Mathematical Optimization of Systems Impacted by Rare, High-Impact Random Events
August 2019Decision-making in systems impacted by rare, high-impact uncertain events is important and challenging due to the potential for extreme adverse effects. Mathematical optimization is a powerful tool that can help decision-makers design, plan, and operate complex systems, but planning for the possibility of such events introduces significant mathematical modeling and computational challenges. […]
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Magnetic Bottles for Fusion Energy
July 2019A plasma is like a square dance gone awry. As the pace and intensity of the music (the temperature) increases, the partners (the atoms) separate into unattached dancers (electrons and ions) interacting throughout a riotous turbulent sea of independent participants (a plasma). The study of hot plasmas is central to the search for the limitless […]
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Varieties of Varieties
July 2019Polynomials are fundamental mathematical objects. Many basic practices in our lives are expressed through polynomials, and the same is true for the laws of science. Einstein’s famous formula expresses energy, E, in terms of a polynomial of degree 1 in m – the mass – and of degree 2 in c – the speed of […]
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Projective geometry of Wachspress coordinates
April 2019The barycentric coordinates of a triangle were introduced by August F. Möbius in 1827. They describe a point in a triangle relative to the three vertices of the triangle. A point in the interior of a triangle splits the triangle into three smaller triangles, as seen in the first figure. The ratios of the three […]
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Cutting Cakes and Splitting Rent – Combinatorics and Fair Division
January 2019How do you divide a cake fairly among several people with different preferences? How do you assign rooms and divide the rent among roommates so that no one envies the room and portion of rent paid by the other? Both of these are questions of fair-division, and mathematicians have shown that answers can be found […]
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IAS Special Year 2017-2018: Analysis and Topology on Locally Symmetric Spaces
December 2018The subject of the special year was locally symmetric spaces. Examples of these highly symmetric objects are the hyperbolic geometries investigated by Bianchi in the 19th century (the first illustration (on the left) is from Bianchi’s 1893 paper) and a 6-dimensional space parameterizing all possible three-dimensional lattices up to rotation (the second illustration (on the […]
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Minimizing P-Frame Energy
November 2018Figure 1. Projections of a configuration on the unit sphere in
, consisting of the coordinate axes and vertices of the inscribed hemicube; i.e., the black vertices of the cube in a black and white coloring with alternating order. The 64 total vertices of the 6-dimensional cube give 32 vertices of the hemicube; […]
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SAMSI Blog: Where are you Gonna go when the Volcano blow?
October 2018This article provided by Bruce Pitman, Professor in the Department of Materials Design and Innovation School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Buffalo. It highlights how the practice of statistics is used to mitigate risk hazards during natural disasters, such […]
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Math careers in academia
October 2018What is like to live the life of a math professor? There are many answers to this question, and they very much depend upon the nature of the mathematician’s institution. A professor at a private research university will have a different set of responsibilities and priorities to one at a liberal […]