BSM
COLLOQUIUM   LECTURE
     Professor
       BILL JACKSON
(Queen Mary University, London)
is going to give a talk on
 
                     Rigidity of Frameworks
The colloquium is on
 THURSDAY,  March 31st, 16:15
        in room  102


 Abstract:  A framework is a collection of bars joined together at universal
joints, that is to say joints which can move in any direction.
A framework is rigid if it cannot be deformed.
Thus, for example, three bars joined in a triangle are rigid but
four bars joined in a square are not, since they can be deformed
into a parallelogram. Rigidity has many diverse applications from
the obvious ones in civil and mechanical engineering to the
flexibility of protein molecules and the layout of wireless networks. I will give
an introduction to the mathematical theory of rigidity and
describe some of its applications.