Abstract

I will talk about some geometric questions that arise in the study of soft/thin objects with negative curvature. After reviewing basic ideas from discrete differential geometry (DDG), I will motivate the need for new “geometric” methods, based on DDG, for studying the mechanics of leaves, flowers, and sea-slugs. I will present some of our results in this direction. This is joint work with Toby Shearman and Ken Yamamoto.