Applied Algebra Seminar

Cheng Guan Koay, UW-Madison. The problem of finding the minimum energy configurations of n electrons on the surface of the unit sphere, which is known as the Thomson problem, is extremely challenging for large n. The minimum energy configurations from the Thomson problem have been found useful as a modeling tool in a variety of problems from modeling spherical viral structures to designing imaging acquisitions in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).