*主持人：朱升峰 教授

*讲座内容简介：
The Onsager principle is a fundamental law for irreversible processes in statistic physics. It has been used to develop theoretical models for many problems in soft matter, like the diffusion process, the dynamics of liquid crystal solution and the moving contact line problems, etc. Recently, the variational principle has been used as an approximation tool to derive reduced models for many complicated systems. In this talk, we will present some applications the Onsager variational principle in numerical analysis, including derivation of a diffusion-generated motion method for wetting problems, a moving finite element method for gradient flows and geometric partial differential equations. The variational formulation makes it convenient to design numerical schemes and to do numerical analysis.

*主讲人简介：
许现民，中国科学院数学与系统科学研究院研究员，本科毕业于南开大学，博士毕业于北 京大学，曾先后赴牛津大学、香港科技大学和亚琛工业大学进行长期学术访问或博士后研 究。其主要研究兴趣是软物质科学中复杂多尺度多物理问题的建模、分析和计算。在两相 流、非线性弹性问题、以及曲面偏微分方程计算等领域取得系列优秀成果。迄今共发表学 术论文近50篇，大多发表于应用和计算数学及相关领域的一流期刊上，包括Arch. Rational Mech. Anal., SIAM J. Numer. Anal.，SIAM J. Sci. Comput., Numer. Math., J. Fluid Mech., J. Comput. Phys.等。担任Int. J. Numer. Anal. Mod. 等期刊编委。