Seminar Schedule: <http://math.la.asu.edu/~tom/cognition/math+cogsched.html>

Our next meeting of the Mathematics and Cognition seminar will take place on
Tuesday, September 4, at 12:10 PM in GWC 604.  Our speaker will be
Professor Tom Taylor of the Department of Mathematics and Center for Systems Science and Engineering, who will speak on the topic:
 
"The Benefits of Blur, or Why Bowling is Better with Beer."

Abstract.
Optico-electric systems such as video and digital cameras, as well as
optico-electric/chemical systems like biological eyes, typically consist of an
optical lense system which focuses impinging radiation on a surface consisting
of pixels, which quantize light intensity as a function of a location of
finite extent in a two dimensional region.  In the hypothetical case that the
optics is perfect, the image of point source, e.g. a fly ball, would then be
locatized in single pixel.  The location of the point source is then
determined by a single sensor only up to a certain solid angle in
space.  However, real world optics cannot focus the image of point source
precisely in a single pixel.  This blurring, which spills light intensity on
neighboring pixels, can in fact give more precise subpixel information
regarding the location of a point source than the so-called perfect
optics.  In this talk we explore some mathematical ramifications of this
situation.  Many, if not all, aspects of the work presented in this talk are
well known to some; perhaps this point of view will prove of interest in other
fields as well.