In 1932, Tarski conjectured that a convex body of width 1 can be covered by planks, regions between two parallel hyperplanes, only if the total width of planks is at least 1. In 1951, Bang proved the conjecture of Tarski. In this work we study the polynomial version of Tarski's plank problem. We note that […]
In this talk we link discrete Markov spectrum to geometry of continued fractions. As a result of that we get a natural generalization of classical Markov tree which leads to an efficient computation of Markov minima for all elements in generalized Markov trees.
I will explain how to apply presentations of algebras (together with some classical results from non-commutative algebra) to obtain some 5 polynomial invariants telling us when two pairs of 2x2 matrices over a commutative ring are conjugate, assuming that each of these pairs generate the matrix algebra. This talk is based on my joint paper […]
As $\lambda$ runs through all integer partitions, the set of Schur functions $\{s_{\lambda}\}_\lambda$ forms a basis in the ring of symmetric functions. Hence the rule $$s_{\lambda}s_{\mu}=\sum c_{\lambda,\mu}^{\gamma} s_{\gamma}$$ makes sense and the coefficients $c_{\lambda,\mu}^{\gamma}$ are called \textit{Littlewood-Richardson (LR) coefficients}. The calculations of Littlewood-Richardson coefficients has been an important problem from the first time they were […]
Suppose you are given a data set that can be viewed as a nonnegative integer-valued function defined on a finite set. A natural question to ask is whether the data can be viewed as a sample from the uniform distribution on the set, in which case you might want to apply some sort of test […]
An elliptic curve $ E: y^2 + a_1 \, x \, y + a_3 \, y = x^3 + a_2 \, x^2 + a_1 \, x + a_6 $ is a cubic equation which has two curious properties: (1) the curve is nonsingular, so that we can draw tangent lines to every point $ P […]
The existence of a set $A\subset \N_0$ of positive upper Banach density such that $A-A:=\{m-n:m, n\in A, m>n\}$ does not contain a set of the form $S-S$ with $S$ a piecewise syndetic is in essence the content of a popular result due to K\v r\'{i}\v z in 1987. Since then at least four different proofs […]
An arithmetical structure on a finite, connected graph G without loops is given by an assignment of positive integers to the vertices such that, at each vertex, the integer there is a divisor of the sum of the integers at adjacent vertices, counted with multiplicity if the graph is not simple. Alternatively, an arithmetical structure […]
This talk discusses a puzzle called “Spinning Switches,” based on a problem popularized by Martin Gardner in his February 1979 column of “Mathematical Games". This puzzle can be generalized to a two-player game on a finite wreath products. This talk will provide a classification of several families of these generalized puzzles, including a full classification […]
The slice rank polynomial method, motivated by groundbreaking work of Croot, Lev and Pach and refined by Tao, has opened the door to the resolution of many problems in extremal combinatorics. We survey these results and discuss contributions in several of the speaker's recent papers.
Given a lattice L, an extension of L is a lattice M of strictly greater rank so that L is equal to the intersection of the subspace spanned by L with M. In this talk, we will discus constructions of such lattice extensions with particular geometric invariants of M, such as the determinant, covering radius […]
Markov chains have become widely-used to generate random political districting plans. These random districting plans can be used to form a baseline for comparison, and any proposed districting plans that differ significantly from this baseline can be flagged as potentially gerrymandered. However, very little is rigorously known about these Markov chains - Are they irreducible? […]
