Measuring Waves

As evident from the recent events in Japan, Chile, and Sumatra, tsunamis are destructive waves that can devastate coastal communities. The best defense is an early warning system that gives people time to reach higher ground. But how exactly does one predict a tsunami?

This talk will focus on some of the challenging mathematical aspects of the water-wave problem and how we can use ideas from ordinary and partial differential equations to measure water waves and possibly help predict tsunamis thus saving lives.