Dr. Uhlmann will begin his talk by describing several inverse problems that arise in several contexts. For example, human vision: from the measurements of scattered light that reaches our retinas, our brains construct a detailed three-dimensional map of the world around us. Solving inverse problems is in fact how we obtain a large part of our information about the world we live in.
In the second part of his talk, Dr. Uhlmann will discuss invisibility, addressing the question, "can we make objects invisible?" This has been a subject of human fascination for millennia in Greek mythology, movies, science fiction, etc., including the legend of Perseus versus Medusa and the more recent Star Trek and Harry Potter stories. In the last 13 years or so there have been several scientific efforts to achieve invisibility. Dr. Uhlmann will describe a simple and powerful proposal, the so-called transformation optics and the progress that has been made in achieving invisibility.
About the Speaker
Dr. Gunther Uhlmann studied mathematics as an undergraduate at the Universidad de Chile in Santiago, gaining his Licenciatura degree in 1973. He continued his studies at MIT where he received a PhD in 1976. He held postdoctoral positions at MIT, Harvard and NYU, including a Courant Instructorship at the Courant Institute in 1977–1978.
In 1980, he became Assistant Professor at MIT and then moved in 1985 to the University of Washington. He has been the Walker Family Professor at the University of Washington since 2006, winning multiple awards and honors along the way. Since 2010 he has been on leave at the University of California, Irvine, as the Excellence in Teaching Endowed Chair.
