These talks will be self-contained presentations of mathematical concepts and theorems. They are intended to be accessible to all mathematics
students.  Coffee, tea and drinks will be provided.

If one moves a curve with normal velocity equal to its curvature, it will eventually disappear and become rounder and rounder in the process. Doing the same to a suitable loop on a donut will eventually produce a curve of shortest length (geodesic) on this surface. Similarly, the motion of surfaces by their curvatures can be used to find minimal (soap-filmlike) surfaces.

Geometric deformation processes such as these behave similarly to heat diffusion. They are also related to mathematical models for the motion of natural interfaces such as grain boundaries in annealing metals, water-ice interfaces and fire fronts.

In this talk, I will give a gentle introduction to geometric diffusion equations and also report on some recent applications in geometry, topology and mathematical physics.