Cy Maor

I am a mathematician, working at the Einstein Institute of Mathematics in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I currently serve as an advisor for the M.Sc. program in our department.

My research is at the interface of the calculus of variations, partial differential equations, and differential geometry, with applications to materials science and shape analysis.

In Hebrew, my name is spelled “שיא מאור”; my first name is pronounced like the letter “C” in English.

Contact information

Cy Maor
Einstein Institute of Mathematics
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Jerusalem 9190401 Israel
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Email (M.Sc. program inquiries): (loading…)
Portrait of Cy Maor
Portrait by Meital Maor

Research

My research has two main threads: mathematical aspects of materials science and infinite-dimensional geometry and shape analysis.

Mathematical aspects of materials science: Many solid bodies in nature are “frustrated” — their internal geometry is incompatible with the surrounding Euclidean space. This happens, for example, in leaves that grow faster near their edges, or in crystalline materials with lattice defects. Their study — often known as non-Euclidean elasticity — seeks to understand how such incompatibilities determine the shape and mechanical behavior of solids. While rooted in questions from physics and materials science, this area leads to deep problems in differential geometry and analysis, for example concerning stability of isometric immersions and limits of variational (minimization) problems. My work ranges from these core mathematical questions to rigorous explanations of physically observed behavior, and to collaborations with theoretical and experimental physicists.

Publications and preprints:

Infinite-dimensional geometry and shape analysis: Many problems in imaging, hydrodynamics, and data analysis can be viewed geometrically: one studies spaces of shapes, maps, or deformations, and asks what their natural geometry looks like. For example, many equations from fluid mechanics can be interpreted as geodesic equations on diffeomorphism groups, while in imaging one may want to deform one shape or image into another along an optimal path. This leads to infinite-dimensional versions of Riemannian geometry, where familiar notions such as geodesics and distance can behave in unexpected ways (for example, the geodesic distance between two points may be zero!). My research seeks to understand these geometries; although mostly theoretical, it has connections to algorithms in graphics, imaging, and geometric data science.

Publications and preprints:

My Master's thesis was in game theory:

Co-authors

Itai Alpern, Martin Bauer, Yael Cohen, Marcelo Epstein, Patrick Heslin, Robert Jerrard, Raz Kupferman, Alice Le Brigant, Ido Levin, Yuxiu Lu, Peter Michor, Maria Giovanna Mora, Michael Moshe, David Padilla-Garza, Animesh Pandey, Ron Rosenthal, Alon Sardas, Emmanuel Siéfert, Asaf Shachar, Eran Sharon, Eilon Solan, Benedikt Wirth, Yafei Zhang.

Teaching

Courses I have taught:

Some notes:

Music

I have been playing the piano and composing music for many years, and had the honor of learning from some great musicians including Josef Bardanashvili, Amnon Wolman and Ilya Dimov (composition) and Sara Tal and Michal Tal (piano).
Below are some compositions and recordings:

  • Piano Sonata, third part (performed by Ruth Zori). Second prize, Yardena Alotin composition competition (2014), Bar Ilan university. First performed by Shira Shaked as part of the 2014 Piano Project of Stony Brook University.
  • Some recordings of my contrabass/piano free-improvisation duo with contrabassist/composer Orr Sinay.
Piano
Picture by Liran Ofir