October 2026
The David G. Pollart Center for Arts and Humanities at WSU is organizing the First-Generation Graduate Student Seminar Series for Fall 2026. The objective of this series is to provide First-Gen grad students and First-Gen international grad students (international students who are first in their families to attend college…
Dr. Raf Vandebril will be giving a colloquium on October 15, 2026 starting at 4:20pm in CUE 318 with refreshments and discussions in Neill Hall 216 starting at 3:15pm. In this talk we will transform the abstract theory of eigenvalues and eigenvectors to a real life device! The toy is simple, inexpensive, easy-to-build, easy-to-operate, and consists of a few balls and rope. The motion of these swinging balls will be used to demonstrate the physical reality of eigenvectors. We will demonstrate the device, link it to its mechanics, and analyze the mathematics to analyze the system. Furthermore, we will show some extra illustrations on a Practicum executed in Leuven, where a model of a shear building is excited.