April 15, 2025
Professor English and Professor Jackson will present a talk. Free pizza and everyone welcome to attend.
"What does a rock falling into a hole have to do with iterated maps and chaos? Approaching first-semester physics problems in a creative way" In PHYS 131, students are asked to find the depth of a chasm from the time it takes to hear the sound of a dropped boulder hitting the bottom. The standard solution involves a system of two equations with two unknowns, but it turns out that a recursive method will also give the right answer. We analyze this non-traditional approach using iterated maps and determine the conditions under which it converges to the correct solution. Interestingly, the iterative method fails to converge when the well depth is large enough for the rock to reach the speed of sound; instead, we get a series of period-doubling bifurcations very similar to what is seen in the logistic map. It turns out that other basic physics problems can also be solved in this way, as long as a mathematical condition is satisfied.
Further information
- Location: Tome 115
- Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
- Cost: Free