The spectral theorem, singular values, and facial recognition

Venue: Run Run Shaw Business Administrative Building, Yuquan Campus

Speaker: Professor John H. Hubbard, professor at the Department of Mathematics, Cornell University

Abstract:

As probably many of you know, Facebook is capable of putting names on faces in pictures that you send them. How do they do it? The information is proprietary, but one can listen to whispers from experts.  In this lecture I propose to describe at least part of what Facebook does: an algorithm known as Eigenfaces. The main point I want to make is that Eigenfaces is straightforward linear algebra, having to do with eigenvalues and eigenvectors, orthogonal projections, etc.