“Light, sound, and the magic of the Fourier Transform”

Professor Geordie Williamson FRS FAA
Director, Mathematics Research Institute
University of Sydney

Date: Thursday, 18 June 2020
Venue: Via email circulation

Summary

Why do guitars, flutes and voices sound different? How do we hear the different notes in a piece of music? What would music look like if we could see it? Most importantly, what does this have to do with the cover of Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon”? Join Professor Geordie Williamson for a journey into the shape of sound and sound waves to explore the fascinating world of timbre, overtones, modes and frequencies.

While pandemic restrictions on group activities prevail, the South Highlands Branch continues to send members information and summaries from our scheduled speakers.

Professor Williamson was due to present this lecture at the June meeting of the Southern Highlands Branch. In light of the current circumstances, his lecture has been replaced by a recording of a recent presentation:

• The magic of the Fourier transform, presented as part of the NSW Chief Scientist Breakfast Series at the NSW Parliament House.

It is a great lecture containing plenty of examples with which you can identify.

Professor Geordie Williamson grew up in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia. He was an undergraduate at the University of Sydney and completed his PhD at the University of Freiburg in Germany. Following his PhD studies he was a Junior Research Fellow at Oxford for three years, and then an Advanced Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn. In 2020/21 he will direct a year-long program at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

Professor Williamson has lectured all over the world, and has had visiting positions in the US, Germany and Japan. His has been awarded several prizes for his work, including the Chevalley Prize of the American Mathematical Society (2016), the European Mathematical Society Prize (2016), the Clay Research Award (2016), the New Horizons in Mathematics Prize (2017) and the Medal of the Australian Mathematical Society (2018). In 2018 he was elected to the Australian Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society, and is currently the youngest living fellow of both institutions.

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