When Delay Matters

Variation is everywhere, look at the different types of dogs you can have! The same can be said for variation (or fluctuations) in nature. Whilst explaining why a dog behaves the way it does is a little simpler (normally to do with food), we have to develop models to describe these dynamics. Variability makes a system less predictable - even noisy. However, bizarrely the noise can be a good thing too - even making oscillations more regular. Confused yet? Come and see me talk and find out about this bizarre phenomenon, and how time may be the answer..

This quote has been made by Gennadi Gerassimow at a press conference in East Berlin in October 1989. A couple of weeks later the Berlin wall came down. What does this tell us: if you are late disaster strikes. This is indeed quite well known, not just by politicians, but as well in mathematics. That will be easily demonstrated by our ability or inability to balance sticks, a problem which has been investigated by mathematicians as early as 1948. So what will the talk be about?We will see how we can do neurobiology by balancing a stick and why functional analysis might be useful in this context