"Sustainability or Collapse? An Exploration of Key Dynamics That May Determine Our Future": Charles Hadlock Presents MAA Carriage House Lecture
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
6:30 PM - 7:30 PM
MAA Carriage House
1781 Church St. NW
Washington, DC 20036
Abstract:
How stable is our planet's biosphere? How robust is our civilization to change? And how much power do we have to control our own future? The first step in answering these questions is to understand the processes at work. Lessons come from many disciplines: history, science, economics, engineering, and many others, with a special place for the speaker's own specialty—mathematics—which can help to tie the insights together.
Meet the Speaker:
Charles Hadlock is a professor of mathematical sciences at Bentley University in Massachusetts, where he previously served as the dean of the college. He has also taught mathematics at Amherst and Bowdoin Colleges and has held a visiting professorship in earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In an earlier career as an international environment consultant with Arthur D. Little, Inc., he focused on analyzing risks on behalf of governments and multinational corporations. His books include Mathematical Modeling in the Environment, Field Theory and Its Classical Problems, and the recently published Six Sources of Collapse: A Mathematician’s Perspective on How Things Can Fall Apart in the Blink of an Eye, all published by the MAA.