Ruonan XuTBA

Radical Cartography: Visual Argument in the Age of Data, Professor William Rankin of Yale University

Recreational swims provide a fun and engaging way for children and parents to practice new skills, stay active, and enjoy quality time together in the pool with the MIT community.No Z Center (MIT Recreation - Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center) membership is required to participate.A parent or caregiver must accompany children in the water. Per Z Center policy, each adult may supervise up to two children at a time.Children must be at least 6 months old to join. If younger, they must be able to hold their head up comfortably. Registration is here. Only for MIT Spouses and Partners Connect members.

Speaker: Zander Kelley (IAS)Title: Bounds for 3-ProgressionsAbstract:Suppose you have a set A of integers from {1,2,...,N} that contains at least N/C elements. Then, for large enough N, must A contain three equally spaced numbers (i.e., a 3-term arithmetic progression)? In 1953, Roth showed that this is indeed the case when C is roughly loglog(N), while Behrend in 1946 showed that C can be at most 2^(√(log N)) by giving an explicit construction of a large set with no 3-term arithmetic progressions. Since then, the problem has been a cornerstone of the area of additive combinatorics. Following a series of remarkable results, a celebrated paper from 2020 due to Bloom and Sisask improved the lower bound on C to C = (log N)^(1+c), for some constant c>0.This talk will describe our work which shows that the same holds when C is roughly 2^((log N)^(1/12)), thus getting closer to Behrend's construction.Based on joint work with Raghu Meka.

Preparing for a research talk, investor pitch, or interview? Eager to polish your three-minute thesis video, podcast, or public talk? In this NEW, six-session workshop series, learn to refine your speaking and presentation skills across a range of contexts. Whether your audience is intimate or enormous, expert or novice, we will help you find strategies to capture and keep their attention. Each interactive session will invite you to implement tips on tailoring your content, delivery, and visual aids to develop your confidence, clarity, and charisma. At the end of six meetings, you will have solid advice and experience with introducing yourself and your topic, tailoring your talk to diverse audiences, structuring your content, streamlining your flow, practicing effectively, and fielding questions.Session 1: Tue, April 1, 4:00-5:30 p.m. First Impressions Session 2: Thu, April 3, 4:00-5:30 p.m. Engage Your Audience Session 3: Tue, April 8, 4:00-5:30 p.m. Structure Your Presentation Session 4: Thu, April 10, 4:00-5:30 p.m. Tell Your Story Session 5: Tue, April 15, 4:00-5:30 p.m. Enhance Your Presentation Session 6: Thu, April 17, 4:00-5:30 p.m. Finish Strong: Conclusions and Q&A

The discovery of Flash Processing—has opened unprecedented avenues in field assisted material consolidation: sintering, surface science, hyper-catalysis, joining of dissimilar materials, far from equilibrium new materials of complex chemistries, and even refractory alloys like tungsten consolidated outside a furnace in seconds and with properties that cannot be achieved in other ways. For example, powders of several primitive oxides can be casually mixed and flashed to yield a single phase of a multicomponent ceramic in a few seconds. Compounds not accessible can be made quickly, easily, and inexpensively. Examples like non-stoichiometric oxides which may have unusual properties for ceramic electrolytes and cathode materials in Li+ batteries and fuel cells. Advanced multi phase ceramic composites and high entropy perovskites made in under 1 minute vs many hours for alternative processing. New ways to join metals and ceramics and recent progress on new electromagnetic touch free flash techniques that provide a path to scalable large complex geometry processing. Field assisted processing is on the cusp of a breakout. If we can address current challenges, this can become one of the cornerstones of modern materials processing. If you or your group is working on metals, ceramics, high entropy alloys, new states of matter and is interested in a fascinating discussion about the physics of off-equilibrium consolidation this is a must attend seminar.Biography: Rishi Raj, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, UC Boulder and Distinguished Life Member by The American Ceramic Society. Rishi received his PhD in 1970 under the tutelage of Michael Ashby and David Turnbull. Rishi is well known for his contributions to metallurgy and ceramics including the developed some of the first high temperature metal processing maps and techniques like sinter forging as well as his significant contributions to polymer derived ceramics but his greatest contribution is the discovery of Flash sintering in 2010, a field that is now building a rapid following as interest in off-equilibrium processing of metals and ceramics grows in importance .