This event will take place both in person and virtually.

Professor Jie (Jackie) Li
Rodney C. Ewing Collegiate Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences

Lecture Title: From Diamonds to Dynamo: How Earth Stays Magnetic?

Lecture Abstract: Beneath the dancing lights of the aurora lies a 4-billion-year survival story. By recreating the extreme pressures and temperatures of Earth’s core with gem-quality diamonds and tightly focused lasers, we peer into our planet’s deepest engine. There, we uncover how a cooling Earth overcame major energy crises by switching its fuel source, thereby sustaining the magnetic shield that protects life.

Professor Ralf J. Spatzier
Gopal Prasad Collegiate Professor of Mathematics

Lecture Title: Symmetry In Geometry and Dynamics:
The Role of Intuition in Mathematics Research

Lecture Abstract: How does mathematics progress? And how do
mathematicians actually make progress?
We are actually making lots of progress, and I hope I can
convince you! But there are many ways we achieve this. Let
me tell you about it in my own case.
Leading Question: How do I make progress?
1: By working hard long hours in my office with my computer?
2: By doing difficult calculations with pen and paper?
3: By going for a walk?
I will try to illuminate how fundamental progress happened in my
own limited experience. It involved grand ideas such as
“symmetry” and how it limits possibilities. A classical example
are the Platonic solids, i.e. convex regular polyhedra with
congruent faces (symmetry). Turns out there are only five.
When a few mild harmless assumptions greatly limit the possible
objects and even completely determine a system, we speak of
“RIGIDITY”, just as in the case of the platonic solids.
In my own research, symmetry is an overriding principle, leading
to rigidity in geometry. As it happened - and after many walks -
this also inspired ideas for rigidity in dynamical systems with
symmetry.
Symmetry and extremal properties have played a major role in
mathematics for a long time. While I will start to discuss this in

the context of some Riemannian geometry, I will emphasize more
recent work on dynamical systems. Here symmetry expresses
itself in terms of having non-trivially commuting maps or flows,
or an action of some group with complicated relations. Case in
point are actions of semisimple Lie groups, especially ones of
higher rank, e.g. SL(n,R) with n at least 3. This is the so-called
Zimmer program. I will hint at some recent highlights.

Professor Nicholas A. Valentino
Donald R. Kinder Collegiate Professor of Political Science

Lecture Title: TBD

Lecture Abstract: TBD

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