º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ Applied Mathematics Seminar (Christmas Lecture)

  • 18 December 2020
  • 2pm - 3pm
  • Online - Microsoft Teams

The mathematics of the rainbow, Professor Chris Linton (º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ).

The rainbow is an often observed yet striking phenomenon whose quantitative explanation requires a surprisingly high degree of mathematical sophistication. Professor Linton will begin by providing a brief history of theories that were developed to explain this atmospheric phenomenon from the ancient Greeks to Newton, Young and Airy. It was in his efforts to provide a quantitative description of rainbow phenomena that Airy created what we know call the Airy function Ai(x). They will then outline the full solution to the problem of electromagnetic scattering by a sphere and say a little about the difficulties that one encounters at high frequencies (as is the case in the light-raindrop problem). Finally, they will discuss one technique, the Watson transformation, that can be used to overcome some of these difficulties and describe an example of its application.

Contact and booking details

Name
Karima Khusnutdinova
Cost
The event is free to attend
Booking required?
No