Junior Colloquium
                   Wednesday April 4, 2012, 3:35 pm
                    
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               The talk will be in Ayres 123 at 3:35 pm
                
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    Pizza will be served before the talk at 3:15 pm on Ayres 4th floor
                
                          All are welcome!
                          
      Please note that this week's Junior Colloquium is on Wednesday

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           Prof. Stephen Shipman, Louisiana State University

             Simple models for complex physical phenomena


Real physical systems are usually too complicated to describe
mathematically in detail.  What we try to do instead is to
isolate essential features of a system and devise an analytically
tractable model system that exhibits those features.  I will
illustrate this philosophy with a simple chain of beads connected
by springs that nicely exhibits the phenomena of wave propagation
and inhibition in crystalline materials as well as confinement of
energy at defects.

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