Meeting schedule

We have room CS311 booked for November 8 and alternate Mondays for the whole term. So, anyone who wants to plan an informal group meeting please go ahead and use the room. If you want to issue a wider invitation then contact me and I'll put it out on the mailing list.

Upcoming and Recent Events

Bessie Borwein: The 11 Women Nobel Laureates

7:00 pm, Tuesday April 5, 2005, Scotiabank Auditorium, Marion McCAin Arts and Social Sciences Building

The story of the Women Nobel Laureates and their scientific accomplishments spans a century of mores, customs, prejudices, persecutions, history and politics—Come and hear about the context and the lives of these amazing women.

CONTEST: Can you name all eleven women Nobel Laureates in the Sciences? If you think you can, send your answer to Carolyn Watters and you could win a prize. The winner will be announced at the lecture.

David Bailey - Performance of Future High-end Systems

March 24, 2005 11:30 am - 1:00 pm, Faculty of computer Science Auditorium

Recent work in high performance computing has underscored the fact that there are numerous scientific applications that require very high levels of parallelism, including some that extend to and beyond the long-sought level of 1 Pflop/s (10^15 floating-point operations per second). Indeed, fears that very large scientific computers "wouldn't have any work to do" have proven utterly unfounded, and, as far as anyone can foresee, always will be. I will first describe a number of the applications that require this level of computing, and then I will sketch out some of the designs and technology that will be used in these systems. Some discussion will also be made on whether there are any fundamental limits to future computing for scientific applications.

Jonathan Schaeffer - Games and the New AI

February 11, 2005 2:00 - 3:30 pm, GINIUS training rooms, Fourth Floor, Faculty of computer Science

Games are a big business -- $10 billion US in North America alone last year. Graphics used to be the major feature for differentiating between products, but times are changing. Consumers are looking for a better gaming experience, and improving the artificial intelligence in products is becoming critical to success. However, there is a large gap between the artificial intelligence needs of the commercial games industry (interactive entertainment) and academic research. Commercial games products needs demand little CPU, little memory usage, realism, and high performance --- in short, they want the impossible. This talk will discuss the games industry and its needs, and how academics can take advantage of a wonderful opportunity.

Helaman And Claire Ferguson - Mathematics In Stone And Bronze

December 3, 2004 1;30 - 2:30 pm, MacMechan Auditorium, Killam Library

Helaman Ferguson's mathematical sculptures in stone and bronze celebrate ancient and modern mathematical discoveries, melding the universal languages of sculpture and mathematics. Using slides and video, Helaman and Claire trace Helaman's creations from initial concept, mathematical design, computer graphics, diamond cutting and final form. Their lectures have fascinated audiences worldwide, bringing together multiple disciplines and stimulating dialogue among them.

Jeff Weeks - The Shape Of Space

December 3, 2004 10:30 - 11:30 am, LSC 242 (Life Sciences Building)

When we look out on a clear night, the universe seems infinite. Yet this infinity might be an illusion. Small group activities, paper-and-scissors constructions and computer games introduce students in grades 6-10 to the mind-stretching possibility of a "multiconnected universe". Interactive 3D graphics lets them explore many possible shapes for space. To conclude this talk, we'll see how recent satellite data provide tantalizing clues to the true shape of our universe.

First Annual AGATE-M Conference
December 3-4, Mount Allison University

The conference consisted of two invited keynote talks by Helaman and Claire Ferguson, and by Jeff Weeks, followed by an open questions panel and an afternoon of contributed talks session.