Abstract:
It is well known that there are numerous ties between different fields of mathematics and physics, and the study of partial differential equations (PDE) is usually crucial for many important discoveries in various seemingly unrelated fields. While it is too much a task to give even a glimpse of the influence of PDE, I will attempt to give an example of how PDE is related to other fields by the story of the Yamabe problem. Even though the resolution of the Yamabe problem requires great effort from outstanding mathematicians of the highest level, the talk requires very little mathematical maturity from the audience. A very bad understanding of Calculus or Linear Algebra wouldn’t prevent you from understanding this talk.