On December 18, 2015, the world-renowned mathematician Professor Gunther Uhlmann was invited to the 50th session of SUSTC Lectures and gave a lecture on Inverse Problem and Harry Porter's Cloak. The lecture was chaired by SUSTC Chief Operating Officer Lu Chun.

    Prof. Gunther Uhlmann is the Walker Professor at Washington University, IAS Chair Professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Academician of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Foreign Member of Academy of Finland, member of American Mathematical Society, Fellow of Simons, and member of Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

Professor Uhlmann

    In his lecture, Professor Gunther Uhlmann introduced the application field of inverse problems. By solving inverse problems, we actually gain information about the world. One example is the vision of a person: the light starts with the scattered light and reaches our retina; then the brain establishes a detailed 3D map of the surrounding world. For instance, through the information gained in the earthquake, we can know the internal structure of the Earth. By solving the inverse X-ray diffraction problem, we can get the DNA structure. By studying the scattering issue of particle bombardment materials, we can get the atom structure and its components. The medical imaging is also a field where the inverse problem is applied intensively, including CT scanning, ultrasonic, MRI and other imaging methods.

    After that, Professor Gunther Uhlmann, by playing video clips about the invisible man, woman and invisible cloak of Harry Porter, discussed about invisibility and whether people or things can become invisible. In the past 1 decade, scientists have found ways to realize invisibility. Professor Gunther Uhlmann introduce some non-technical methods in the so-called means of “transformation optics”.

    When the lecture has ended, Professor Gunther Uhlmann answered questions raised by SUSTC students.