Annual Undergraduate Awards
Every year the Mathematics Department nominates undergraduate students to receive awards recognizing outstanding achievement in mathematics and contributions to the mathematics community within Northwestern University. These annual prizes are awarded at a gala departmental ceremony held in late spring.
The 2025 Math UG Awards will be presented on Wednesday, May 21 in Annenberg G21 at 5p. This year's featured speaker is Tadashi Tokieda (Stanford).
- Title: Applying physics to mathematics
- Abstract: Humans tend to be better at physics than at mathematics. When an apple falls from a tree, there are more people who can catch it — they physically know how the apple moves — than those who can compute its trajectory from a differential equation. Applying physical ideas to discover and establish mathematical results is therefore natural, even if it has seldom been tried in the history of science. (The exceptions include Archimedes, some old Russian sources, a recent book by Levi, as well as my articles and lectures.) A variety of examples will be presented.