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Penn Undergraduate Mathematics Colloquium

Wednesday, November 28, 2007 - 4:30pm

Peter Storm

University of Pennsylvania

Location

University of Pennsylvania

DRL A6

Tea will be served at 4 PM in DRL 4E17 before the talk, and a light pizza dinner will be served in DRL 4E17 after the talk.

Figuring out what is meant by curved space can be difficult. Using some physical thought experiments involving a bowling ball and magnetic triangles, I'll try to explain how the effects of curvature can be easily seen and understood in the trajectory of a bowling ball. From there the leap to three dimensions is less difficult.