I will introduce minimal surfaces  and explain the 
Weierstrass-Enneper representation of a minimal surface using hodographic 
coordinates. I will mention an interesting link between minimal surfaces 
and Born-Infeld solitons. If time permits, I will explain my work (with P 
Kumar and R K Singh) on interpolation of two real analytic curves by a 
minimal surface of the Bj\"{o}rling-Schwartz type.