Smashing Particles up Against Mathematics

Dr. Abiy Tasissa of Tufts University, discusses the mathematics he
and colleagues used to study particle collider data, including
optimal transport and optimization. Collider physics often result
in distributions referred to as jets. Dr. Tasissa and his team used
"Earth Mover's Distance" and other mathematical tools to study the
shape of jets. "It is interesting for me to see how mathematics can
be applied to study these fundamental problems answering
fundamental equations in physics, not only at the level of
formulating new ideas, which is, in this particular case, a notion
of distance, but also how the importance of designing fast
optimization algorithms to be able to actually compute these
distances," says Dr. Tasissa.