to be announced

[Silva Alessandro]

Dear Colleagues,

Prof. Michael Berry (Bristol University) is presently visiting the
ICTP/SISSA Statistical Physics Group, during the period 19/05 to 15/06. He
will be delivering a series of nine lectures on "Singularities and
asymptotics".

The detailed schedule is in the attachment.

The first lecture will be TOMORROW.

*********************************************************


Speaker: Prof. Michael Berry (Bristol University)

Date and Venue: 20/05/2008 at 11 a.m. in room D at SISSA

Title: "Tsunami asymptotics"

Abstract: "For most of their propagation, tsunamis are linear dispersive
waves whose speed is limited by the depth of the ocean and which can be
regarded as diffraction-decorated caustics in spacetime. For constant
depth, uniform asymptotics gives a very accurate compact description of
the tsunami profile generated by an arbitrary initial disturbance.
Vartiations in depth can focus tsunamis onto cusped caustics, and this
‘singularity on a singularity’ constitutes an unusual diffraction problem,
whose solution indicates that focusing can amplify the tsunami energy
by an order of magnitude."



-- 
Alessandro Silva
Abdus Salam ICTP
room 234, Leonardo Building
pd:+39-040-2240-279
fax: +39-040-224-163