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Abstract: Suppose you make a sphere out of a thin membrane and
then strike it like a drum. Then, without ever seeing the sphere, I
listen to the sound it makes. Can I tell you the radius of the
sphere? Now fold the sphere up somehow and do the same thing. Can I
determine how it was folded simply by listening to how it resonates?
We'll discuss a mathematician's approach to these questions using the
tools of spectral geometry.
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