Algebra / Number Theory / Combinatorics Seminar

I will talk about a few graph-theoretic metrics then introduce the concept of refinements on a class of functions that include all metrics. As a case study, we will construct various […]

A Fibonomial is what is obtained when you replace each term of the binomial coefficients $ {n \choose k}$ by the corresponding Fibonacci number.  For example, the Fibonomial $${ 6\brace […]

For centuries finding the determinant of a matrix was considered to be something that took $\Theta(n^3)$ steps.  Only in 1969 did Strassen discover that there was a faster method.  In […]

In this talk, I will try to give a fun introduction to tropical geometry and Hassett spaces, and show how tropical geometry can be used to compute the Chow rings of Hassett spaces combinatorially. This is joint work with Siddarth Kannan and Shiyue Li.

A triple of natural numbers (a,b,c) is an S-set if a+b=c. I. Schur used the S-sets to show that for n >3, there exists s(n) such that for prime p > s(n), x^p + y^p = z^p (mod p) has a nontrivial solution. A (p,q)-graph G is said to be vertex Ho-Lee-Schur graph if there exists a bijection […]

Augusta Ada Byron King Lovelace (1815-1852) is today celebrated as the first computer programmer in history. This might be confusing to some because in 1852 there were no machines that looked like what we call computers today. In this talk I attempt to explain what Ada really did, and delineate the mathematics involved. Bernoulli numbers […]

One of the main drivers of current research in geometry is the classification of Calabi-Yau threefolds.  Towards this effort, a particular approach in algebraic geometry is via the study of stability conditions.  In this talk, I will explain what constitutes a notion of stability in algebraic geometry, and what the challenges are in studying them.

The classical Frobenius problem asks for the largest integer not representable as a non-negative integer linear combination of a relatively prime integer n-tuple. This problem and its various generalizations have […]

In Euclidean geometry, the sum of  two sides of any  triangle is greater than the third side. We  introduce this idea to labeling of graphs. A (p,q)-graph G=(V,E) is said to […]

An “Adinkra” is a graphical tool to describe a branch of particle physics known as supersymmetry. Understanding the mathematics of Adinkras shines a light on the underlying physics, as well […]

The classical, one-boundary, and two-boundary Temperley-Lieb algebras arise in mathematical physics related to solving certain rectangular lattice models.They also have beautiful presentations as "diagram algebras", meaning that they have basis […]

In this talk, I will give an overview of the theory of matroids. These are mathematical objects which capture the combinatorial essence of linear independence. Besides providing some basic definitions of this theory, I will discuss several examples of matroids and explain some connections with optimization. Also, in this talk, I will introduce matroid polytopes, […]