B O S T O N   U N I V E R S I T Y
                                       
		      Computer Science Department
                                       
			  C O L L O Q U I U M
                                       
                          Monday, Feb 2, 1998
                                       
			        3:00pm 
		       (Coffee served at 2:50pm)

                                       
			 Seminar Room / MCS 135
                                       

			 Mathematical sandpiles
	    (an introduction to  self-organized criticality)

  	     		    Lawrence Gray
	              Department of Mathematics
		       University of Minnesota

  Accessible to a mathematically curious audience with minimal background
(calculus), this talk combines several simple examples with a careful
mathematical discussion, in an attempt to make sense out of the bold claim,
made by Per Bak in a recent popular science book, that self-organized
criticality is "how nature works."

Host: Peter Gacs, gacs@bu.edu

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