Speakers
Description
Partial differential equations (PDEs) underpin mathematical models across science and engineering, yet their complexity presents a significant barrier to students and researchers outside mathematics. In this talk, I will present VisualPDE (a free, open-source, browser-based platform for real-time interactive simulation of PDE systems) and discuss its role as both a pedagogical tool and a medium for interdisciplinary communication.
VisualPDE requires no installation or coding knowledge and runs instantly in any web browser. Simulations can be shared via a URL, making them trivially embeddable in lecture notes, papers, and outreach materials. This immediacy transforms the teaching of abstract concepts, rather than presenting bifurcations and instabilities as static equations, students can explore them by direct manipulation, such as by tuning parameters, painting initial conditions, and probing boundary effects in real time.
Beyond the classroom, VisualPDE serves as a communication bridge between mathematical modellers and domain scientists. Shareable, interactive simulations allow collaborators in biology, ecology, and beyond to build genuine intuition about model behaviour without engaging directly with the underlying mathematics. In an era of open science, we hope that interactive simulations like these can be first-class outputs of mathematical research designed to broaden impact and deepen understanding.
