Milton Wing Lecture Series
Lecture 1: Mathematical Sensors

Abstract: Sensor networks are poised to impact society in fundamental ways analogous to the impact of the networked personal computers. The rapid development of small-scale sensors coupled with wireless ad hoc networking capability foreshadows a day when our physical surroundings will wake up with sensory data, assuming it does not drown in the data first. This lecture will outline how modern mathematical tools -- sums and simplices, holes and homologies, counting and calculus -- all converge to new tools for helping the walls to wake up.