Prize-winning paper yields good vibrations

David Bindel , assistant professor of computer science, and Amanda Hood, a Ph.D. candidate working in the Cornell Center for Applied Mathematics , have received the 2015 SIAG/Linear Algebra Prize for their paper "Localization Theorems for Nonlinear Eigenvalue Problems," which has also been selected by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) as a SIGEST paper to be reprinted in the December 2015 SIAM Review. The paper was first published in SIAM Journal on Matrix Analysis and Applications in 2013. The 2015 SIAG/Linear Algebra Prize goes to the authors of the most outstanding paper on a topic in applicable linear algebra published in English in a peer-reviewed journal within the three calendar years preceding the year of the award. Selection as a SIGEST paper for SIAM Review is another major recognition in the field. Eigenvalues represent the frequency and damping of vibrations, and they are important in understanding mathematical models of how physical systems - from a highway bridge to an electronic circuit to a musical instrument - will behave dynamically in response to outside forces. Mathematicians have developed ways to analyze eigenvalue problems as long as the system is "linear" - changing smoothly in direct proportion to changes in frequency.