The University of Göttingen has invited young top-level researchers from Germany and abroad to lead the new research groups financed by funds from the Excellence Initiative. They are responsible for so-called Free Floater Groups and for Junior Research Groups at the seven Courant Research Centres which have been established in the context of the implementation of the University’s Institutional Strategy to Promote Top-Level Research. These highly qualified researchers will be introduced in a series of portraits.



Prof. Dr. Max Wardetzky

How mathematical ideas turn into pictures
What happens exactly when a telephone cable gets entangled? How can a three dimensional model of a new car design be transferred to the flat plane of the computer screen? How are special effects in animated films created? At first sight, these different areas of modern technology may appear to have little in common. Yet all these questions are a case for a relatively young field of mathematical research: Discrete differential geometry develops methods and models by which spatial objects and phenomena can be described and processed on the computer. For Max Wardetzky, it is especially the close correlation of abstract theories and concrete visualization that makes the new geometry so exciting: ”There is a strong artistic aspect; we think very often in images.”
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