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SUMMARY:Alex Heaton (The Fields Institute)
DTSTART:20210225T173000Z
DTEND:20210225T183000Z
DTSTAMP:20260422T053420Z
UID:SFUQNTAG/21
DESCRIPTION:Title: <a href="https://researchseminars.org/talk/SFUQNTAG/21/
 ">Catastrophe discriminants of tensegrity frameworks</a>\nby Alex Heaton (
 The Fields Institute) as part of SFU NT-AG seminar\n\n\nAbstract\nWe discu
 ss elastic tensegrity frameworks made from rigid bars and elastic cables\,
  depending on many parameters. For any fixed parameter values\, the stable
  equilibrium position of the framework is determined by minimizing an ener
 gy function subject to algebraic constraints. As parameters smoothly chang
 e\, it can happen that a stable equilibrium disappears. This loss of equil
 ibrium is called `catastrophe' since the framework will experience large-s
 cale shape changes despite small changes of parameters. Using nonlinear al
 gebra we characterize a semialgebraic subset of the parameter space\, the 
 catastrophe set\, which detects the merging of local extrema from this par
 ametrized family of constrained optimization problems\, and hence detects 
 possible catastrophe. Tools from numerical nonlinear algebra allow reliabl
 e and efficient computation of all stable equilibrium positions as well as
  the catastrophe set itself.\n
LOCATION:https://researchseminars.org/talk/SFUQNTAG/21/
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