A mathematical approach to the analysis of scientific presentations

The paper provides a mathematical approach to the problem of presenting a scientific work in the most effective way. To this purpose, a performance index that measures the quality of the presentation is first introduced. The speaker’s task is that of maximising this index by properly choosing a suitable decision variable (control law). Since the index depends on the ability of the audience to assimilate new information, the solution requires to know the level of knowledge of the spectators. It is assumed that this knowledge is distributed among them according to a density function with a unique maximum similar to the classic bell-shaped Gaussian curve. The adopted decision variable, whose time course should be found, accounts for the current information content of the talk, defined as the amount of knowledge required to understand what is being presented. The optimal solution shows that the information conveyed to the audience should be kept close to the maximum of the aforementioned knowledge distribution.