The Banana of My Eye

Lanius, Melinda

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/95933 Copy

Description

Title

The Banana of My Eye

Author(s)

Lanius, Melinda

Issue Date

2017

Keyword(s)

Mathematics

Abstract

"""The apple of my eye"" is something I cherish above all others. As a mathematician I study minimally degenerate Poisson manifolds. You can think of a Poisson manifold as the skin of a fruit. Imagine an apple. You probably imagine a fruit with a shiny bright red facade. This pristine and perfect skin corresponds to a non-degenerate Poisson structure. As is true when picking out fruit at the grocery store, many Poisson manifolds aren't quite perfect, but come with dents and bruises. Given a fruit (Poisson manifold), with a minor blemish, I use calculus to try and understand the damage. Sometimes I can model this degeneracy and incorporate the blemish into the geometry. For instance, I can handle the depicted banana, splitting it apart to understand subtle nuances in the geometry that other mathematicians weren't able to see before.However, I am unable to grapple with the bruise on the pear. Through the lens of Poisson geometry, I come to see flawed fruit as perfect and pristine. While this fruit may appear bruised or defective to another mathematician, it becomes the apple - or perhaps I should say banana - of my eye."

Type of Resource

• text
• image

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/95933

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2017 Melinda Lanius

Owning Collections