How do you estimate the number of dental offices, gas stations or movie theaters in a city of a given size? Can you predict whether a traffic light will stay green long enough for you to cross the street? What's the likelihood your city will be hit by an asteroid?

For the answers to these and other entertaining questions about urban life, join John Adam, Ph.D., for "X and the City: Modeling Aspects of Urban Life" at 5 p.m. on Thursday, April 11 at Fairfield University's DiMenna-Nyselius Library on campus. The event, which will be held in the multimedia room, is free and open to the public.

Dr. Adam, author and professor of mathematics at Old Dominion University, will consider many different aspects of city life that can be modeled mathematically, from traffic flow to population growth, air pollution to 'taxicab geometry', even the behavior of light in a city. X and the City , Dr. Adam's book of the same name, offers diverse and accessible math-based topics and uses basic modeling to explore a wide range of questions about urban life. The talk, which is part of the colloquium series in Fairfield's Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, is being sponsored by the Humanities Institute of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Adam's research interests are varied and he has written about and given presentations on patterns in nature, models in cancer research and wound healing, guesstimation and more. A former Fulbright Scholar, he has received several prestigious awards, including one from the Mathematical Association of America. He holds a Ph.D. in theoretical astrophysics/applied mathematics from University College and a B.S. in theoretical physics from Queen Elizabeth College, University of London.

For more information on this event, contact Janet Striuli, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, (203) 254-4000, ext. 2923.

Posted On: 03-26-2013 11:03 AM

Volume: 45 Number: 233