PUBLIC TALK:
  Mathematics and Statistics Colloquium
  - It's a wonderful life! - Reflections on the career of a mathematician
		
Thu, 05 Mar 2020 16:00 - Blakers Lecture Theatre
		
Professor Emerita Luise-Charlotte Kappe
Followed by Cheese and wine in Maths Common Room

Abstract: We all have our doubts off and on if life is really so
wonderful. But that is not what I want to address here. Watching the
Jimmy Stewart movie with this title, there was one scene which captured
my imagination: the Guardian Angel shows George Bailey how the world
would have been without him. Personally, I never had much need to know
how the world would have looked without me. However, all other things
equal, how would life have been if I had lived in a different time and
place, would be something of interest to me! This is the stuff of movies
and fairy tales. But at least it is possible to play this as an
intellectual game.  I was born and raised in Germany before WW II. After
getting my Ph.D. in 1962, I married a fellow mathematician and we
immigrated to the US one year later, where we taught at a university
until our retirements, first at Ohio State and then at Binghamton
University. What would life have been if I stayed in Germany, did not
get married, were born fifty or one hundred years earlier, or were born
in another country? Looking at actual and potential role models over the
centuries helped me answer some of these questions. In essence, it got
me back to the roots of what shaped my life.
		
For more information:
  David Pfefferle
  david.pfefferle@uwa.edu.au

Starts       : Thu, 05 Mar 2020 16:00
Ends         : Thu, 05 Mar 2020 18:00
		
Last Updated : Mon, 17 Feb 2020 12:07