The beauty I see in algebra: Margot Gerritsen at TEDxStanford

Margot Gerritsen is a professor of energy resources engineering and the director of the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering. After receiving her master's degree in applied mathematics in the Netherlands, Gerritsen moved to the United States in search of "hillier and sunnier places." She received her doctorate in scientific computing and computational mathematics at Stanford, and later became a faculty member at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Gerritsen specializes in renewable and fossil energy production and in computational mathematics. She is also active in coastal ocean dynamics and yacht design.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

[avitimushi]

Margot makes mathematics appetizing.. Such an enthusiasm. Very rarely can lay people enjoy something a mathematician says. At least there are many physicists who know what to say to the lay people and make them understand complex phenomena. With Margot speaking, a person starts thinking to do Math even for fun as a hobby!!!

[jjwqxh]

I’m crying out of emotional for a real math teacher if they can only write the algorithm to make her my mother I’ll volunteer to be born again

[youreale]

After years of indecision I decided to apply to a master after watching one of the professor Gerritsen talks. I cannot thank her enough for such inspirational vision about math sciences.

[changeme]

She is amazing 😍. I like her lectures about mathematics!

[jcookfl]

Margot Gerritsen is truly a brilliant mathematician, and has a rare gift of being able to articulate very abstract ideas in a practical and intriguing manner. As a software developer, I long ago adopted the philosophy that computer science is about big ideas, rather than specific technologies, so I especially enjoy her lectures related to computational mathematics. She often shows how practical mathematical patterns relate to things such as search engine technologies, social networking, and more. I hope everyone else enjoys these talks as much as I do.

[eecejk]

So impressive : Matrices are everywhere. Thanks!

[rayxr]

If this isn't motivation to pay attention in linear algebra class I don't know what is.

[bhartendu_kumar]

linear Algebra is such one thing which as I learn more, there is even more that I don’t know! Paradox!!

i have always found algebra interesting, and was amused by how simultaneous equations solve the unknowns

[Corranhorn]

Margot Gerritsen, you blew my mind tonight. As someone who has a BS in Mathematics and fair exposure to physics, I thought I had a good idea about the general lay of the land (I'll admit Linear algebra was not my strong point), but I'd never thought of representing systems of equations/matrices as node-edge graphs. It's beautiful! What's more, with your demonstration of an application to visualization of web page networks, I think you hinted that these same methods that you mainly applied to physical problems here are also very useful in other domains like data science/big data. The more you know. :)

[kristypolymath]

8:54 please tell me I'm not the only one seeing the diagonal lines in the matrix? They are running through the 0.1562 numbers. Are my eyes playing tricks on me? o_0

[davedonnie]

I hope this is a simplified explanation, because I don't really get it

[shoaibsultan]

That"s Wonderful, Thank you so much Professor.

[theboombody]

I majored in math. As useful as algebra is, I try to use geometry as much as possible and algebra as little as possible. When stuff doesn't cancel out it kills me.

[Ainsaboo]

Is there a way to find the program she uses to make matrix maps?

[asimian]

Some clarification and to take nothing away from this TEDx talk: Margot is talking about linear algebra, which is considered difficult by most math majors. While matrices exist everywhere it's an *invented* mathematical notation. It doesn't exist in Nature. It's a convenient data structure (data structure for computer science students/programmers) which allows us to do manipulations in a convenient manner.

[alexandrugheorghe]

Cool stuff. So funny to think that back when I was in school and I was asking professors "where can I use this? and how useful it is in real life?" they did not know how to answer. Most of the professors just copy paste but have 0% application in mind.

May be that it was a shitty school or not, the fact does not change: forcing people to memorize is the worst way of teaching. I've encountered only a few professors in my entire life and all of them online which could transcribe mathematics to real world application, how to see a problem and to translate it in mathematics thus making you understand the power of it all and why it's the basis of all sciences (my most favorite: physics).

How can one not use mathematics? Try to solve problems efficiently by throwing banana or any other devised system/mechanism. Good luck with that, haha.

Brilliant talk! We need more and more like her in all levels of school such that the students can correlate what they are thought with the real world and thus having more people solving problems rather than mindlessly memorizing stuff.

[leavesofdecember]

there I was thinking it would be a talk about abstract algebra, and all I get was basic linear algebra plus programmig :(

[manish]

Excellent Presentation people will love algebra after seeing this nice presentation

[LThMath]

An incredible, inspirational talk. This is wonderful :)