Seminars and Colloquia by Series

Twisting polynomials: new directions in the study of Thurston maps

Series
Other Talks
Time
Tuesday, August 14, 2018 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 154
Speaker
Justin Lanier – Georgia Tech –
Take a branched covering map of the sphere over itself so that the forward orbit of each critical point is finite. Such maps are called Thurston maps. Examples include polynomials with well-chosen coefficients acting on the complex plane, as well as twists of these by mapping classes. Two basic problems are classifying Thurston maps up to equivalence and finding the equivalence class of a Thurston map that has been twisted. We will discuss ongoing joint work with Belk, Margalit, and Winarski that provides a new, combinatorial approach to the twisted polynomial problem. We will also propose several new research directions regarding Thurston maps. This is an oral comprehensive exam. All are welcome to attend.

IBM PonderThis monthly challenge

Series
Other Talks
Time
Tuesday, April 10, 2018 - 11:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Prof. Oded Margalit – CTO, IBM Cyber security center of excellence at Ben Gurion, University of the Negev

Please Note: [CV: Prof. Oded Margalit, PhD in Computer Science from Tel-Aviv University under the supervision of Prof. Zvi Galil has worked at IBM's Haifa research lab on machine learning, constraint satisfaction, verification and more. Currently he is the CTO of the IBM Cyber security center of excellence at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. Oded participates in organising several computer science competitions (like the international IEEEXtreme and the national CodeGuru). He loves riddles and authors the monthly challenge corner of IBM research: "Ponder-This".]

IBM research runs a mathematical challenge site. Every month a new challenge is posted; as well as a solution for the previous month's riddle. Prof. Oded Margalit is the puzzlemaster, for the last decade. In the talk, he will survey some of the riddles over the years, and tell some anecdotes about the challenges and the solvers. For example: A PRL paper born from a riddle on random walks; ITA-2014 paper on water hose model (using quantum entanglement to break location based encryption); Games: 2048, Kakuro, Infinite chess game, the probability of a backgammon to end with a double, Fisher Foul Chess and more. Minimal hash function, Combinatorial Test Design; A solver from Intensive Care Unit and other stories; Finding a natural number n such that round ((1+2 cos(20))^n) is divisible by 10^9; We'll leave you with a still open question about Permutation-firing cannon... Don't worry - no high math knowledge is assumed.

Mathematics in Motion

Series
Other Talks
Time
Sunday, March 11, 2018 - 16:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Drew Charter School
Speaker
various performers – GT, Emory, Little Minute
This is an Atlanta Science Festival performance in which mathematicians team up with dancers to give an artistic interpretation to the public of some mathematicians and some mathematical concepts. This year's show will have an emphasis on graph theory. There will be two performances at Drew Charter School in East Atlanta. For tickets go to https://www.freshtix.com/events/mathematics-in-motion---4pm-showing or https://www.freshtix.com/events/mathematics-in-motion---7pm-showing .

Brill--Noether theory and determinantal formulas for degeneracy loci

Series
Other Talks
Time
Friday, February 23, 2018 - 17:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Classroom 105 in the D.M. Smith building
Speaker
Associate Professor – Swarthmore College
Degeneracy loci of morphisms between vector bundles have been used in a wide range of situations, including classical approaches to the Brill--Noether theory of special divisors on curves. I will describe recent developments in Schubert calculus, including K-theoretic formulas for degeneracy loci and their applications to K-classes of Brill--Noether loci. These recover the formulas of Eisenbud--Harris, Pirola, and Chan--López--Pflueger--Teixidor for Brill--Noether curves. This is joint work with Dave Anderson and Nicola Tarasca.

What is Hamiltonian mechanics? Why use it? How to use it.

Series
Other Talks
Time
Friday, January 12, 2018 - 10:10 for 1.5 hours (actually 80 minutes)
Location
Skiles 005
Speaker
Rafael de la Llave – School of Mathematics, Georgia Inst. of Technology
This is a preliminary talk for the Workshop "Introduction to Dynamical Systems Methods for Mission Design" that will take place Jan 16-19 in the school of Mathematics. In this talk, we will present the basics of Hamiltonian dynamics and why it is useful. It ishoped that it will be accesible for people with background in undergraduate differential equations who want to participate in the workshop.

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