The Fourth Undergraduate Seminar Session
The fourth session continued our exploration of mathematics across disciplines, featuring topics from cosmology to machine learning to forensic accounting.
Speakers & Topics
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Mariami Lominashvili - Dark Energies and Accelerating Universe
Explores why the universe's expansion speeds up, and how "dark energy" is
modeled and tested using cosmological observations.
Mariami Lominashvili explaining the FLRW Metric in cosmology
Presenting the Copernican principle and universe homogeneity
Interactive demonstration of the Newtonian limit in cosmology
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Tanya Goenka (Class of 28, CS) – Runge–Kutta method for solving
differential equations is
used in neural networks
Shows how numerical ODE solvers (like Runge–Kutta) connect to modern ML ideas
such as Neural ODEs, improving stability and interpretability.
Tanya Goenka presenting "Runge-Kutta method for solving differential equations"
Exploring the importance of numerical solvers in Neural ODEs
Breaking down the core idea behind Runge-Kutta methods
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Rakan Al-Khatib (Class of 28, IEM) – Benford's law: how many false accounting reports
are
there in the world
Uses digit-distribution patterns (Benford's law) to flag anomalies in financial
data and discuss how it helps detect possible fraud.
Rakan Al-Khatib presenting his experiment on leading digit distribution
Exploring how Benford's Law applies to real-world data
Tracing the historical discovery of Benford's Law from 1881 to 1938
Watch the full UGS IV session