Professor Marta Mazzocco: Crooked Surfaces and Chewing gum; why mathematicians love to deform and curve

As part of the Inaugural Lecture Series of the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, join Professor Marta Mazzocco, Professor of Mathematics, as she delivers her inaugural lecture.

Abstract: Most of the ancient Greek discoveries were forgotten in the Middle Ages and people believed that the earth was flat and that the sea would spill over at its edges. Since the renaissance, people believe that the earth is spherical so that we can sail the sea all around it. However, mathematics might have a third option about this. In this talk, Professor Marta Mazzocco will explore the mysterious world of non-Euclidean geometry, its non-intuitive consequences and its ubiquitous nature. Professor Mazzocco will also show how 3 times 2 is not the same as 2 times 3 in the world of non-commutative algebra.

Professor Marta Mazzocco is a specialist in the area of integrable systems, namely mathematical problems often motivated by Mathematical Physics that present unexpected beauty - a serendipity of geometric/algebraic/analytical structures that make a very complicated problem solvable in some sense. Her research brings geometry, quantum algebra and analysis together to describe and tackle problems which have so far resisted all other methods.