BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Claremont Center for the Mathematical Sciences - ECPv6.15.17.1//NONSGML v1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://colleges.claremont.edu/ccms X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Claremont Center for the Mathematical Sciences REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H X-Robots-Tag:noindex X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Los_Angeles BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20240310T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20241103T090000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20250309T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20251102T090000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20260308T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20261101T090000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250201T100000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250201T120000 DTSTAMP:20260506T130709 CREATED:20250125T112344Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250127T220052Z UID:3655-1738404000-1738411200@colleges.claremont.edu SUMMARY:GEMS February 1st Session DESCRIPTION:This GEMS session will be facilitated by Professor Qidi Peng and William Wu from Claremont Graduate University.\n\n\nTitle: The Beauty of Fractal Geometry\n\n\n\nAbstract:  We will introduce fractal geometries\, which are described in continuous but nowhere differential functions. We will tell the students where to find these geometries in the nature and how to describe them using mathematical tools\, such as box-counting dimension and self-similarity index. We will host small games to let students feel the beauty of fractal geometry. URL:https://colleges.claremont.edu/ccms/event/gems-february-1st-session/ LOCATION:Shanahan 1480\, Harvey Mudd College\, 301 Platt Blvd.\, Claremont\, CA\, 91711\, United States CATEGORIES:GEMS END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250204T121500 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250204T131000 DTSTAMP:20260506T130709 CREATED:20250123T065341Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250123T065341Z UID:3639-1738671300-1738674600@colleges.claremont.edu SUMMARY:Quandle cohomology quiver representations (Sam Nelson\, CMC) DESCRIPTION:Quandles are algebraic structures encoding the motion of knots through space. Quandle cocycle quivers categorify the quandle cocycle invariant. In this talk we will define a quiver representation associated to quandle cocycle quivers and use it to obtain new polynomial invariants of knots. URL:https://colleges.claremont.edu/ccms/event/quandle-cohomology-quiver-representations-sam-nelson-cmc/ LOCATION:Estella 2113 CATEGORIES:Algebra / Number Theory / Combinatorics Seminar END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250205T161500 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250205T173000 DTSTAMP:20260506T130709 CREATED:20250125T041206Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250129T061036Z UID:3643-1738772100-1738776600@colleges.claremont.edu SUMMARY:CCMS Colloquium: (Hrushikesh Mhaskar\, Claremont Grad Uni.) DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Hrushikesh Mhaskar\, Distinguished Research Professor of Mathematics\, Claremont Graduate University \nTitle: Local Analysis Of Global Data \nAbstract: For a periodic integrable function f\, the definition of Fourier coefficients requires the values of f on the entire period.\nWe refer to such data as “global” data. Even though the sequence of Fourier coefficients determines f uniquely\,\nthey do not reveal by themselves local features such as the locations of discontinuities of f (whose definition requires\nthe values of f locally near the point of discontinuity). We will describe our work for extracting such local features\nfrom global data. We will discuss some modern applications such as the separation of blind source signals\, and\nmachine learning problems\, classification and regression in particular. \nBio: Hrushikesh Mhaskar is a research professor of mathematics. He holds a PhD in mathematics\, MS in computer science\, and MS in mathematics from Ohio State University\, and an MSc in mathematics from Indian Institute of Technology\, Mumbai. \nMhaskar’s area of research is approximation theory and harmonic analysis. He has done pioneering work in the theory of weighted polynomial approximation on the real line\, making deep contributions in the areas of orthogonal polynomial expansions and applications of potential theory to the study of orthogonal polynomials\, now known as Freud polynomials. This work is recognized through such terms as Mhaskar-Rahmanov-Saff number and Mhaskar-Saff functional. Since 1990\, he has been interested in machine learning and signal processing\, making pioneering contributions to the theory of approximation capabilities (expressive power) of shallow and deep neural networks\, kernel-based methods\, and manifold learning. He has published two books\, five edited volumes\, and over 150 refereed papers. His research is supported currently by the National Science Foundation\, and previously by the U.S. Air Force\, U.S. Army\, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (U.S.A.). \nMhaskar serves on the editorial boards of Applied and Computational Harmonic Analysis\, Journal of Approximation Theory\, Frontiers in Applied Mathematics and Statistics\, Jaen Journal of Approximation\, and Mathematical Foundations of Computing. Currently\, he has an affiliation with the University of California\, Santa Barbara. His honors include the Alexander v. Humboldt fellowship (5 times)\, John von Neumann distinguished professorship at Technical University in Munich in 2011\, and August-Wilhelm Scheer visiting professor at TUM (postponed due to the pandemic). URL:https://colleges.claremont.edu/ccms/event/ccms-colloquium-hrushikesh-mhaskar-claremont-grad-uni/ LOCATION:Argue Auditorium\, Pomona College\, 610 N. College Ave.\, Claremont\, CA\, 91711\, United States CATEGORIES:Colloquium ORGANIZER;CN="Bahar Acu":MAILTO:Bahar_Acu@pitzer.edu GEO:34.0999157;-117.7142668 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Argue Auditorium Pomona College 610 N. College Ave. Claremont CA 91711 United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=610 N. College Ave.:geo:-117.7142668,34.0999157 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250211T121500 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250211T131000 DTSTAMP:20260506T130709 CREATED:20250206T203702Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250206T203729Z UID:3689-1739276100-1739279400@colleges.claremont.edu SUMMARY:On the illumination problem for convex sets (Lenny Fukshansky\, CMC) DESCRIPTION:Let K be a compact convex set in the Euclidean space R^n. How many lights are needed to illuminate its boundary? A classical conjecture of Boltyanskii (1960) asserts that 2^n lights are sufficient to illuminate any such set K. While this is still open\, an earlier observation of Hadwiger (1945) guarantees that if K has smooth boundary\, then n+1 lights are sufficient: we only need to position these lights at the vertices of a simplex containing K in its interior. In fact\, this observation allows us to estimate how far from K these lights need to be. A more delicate problem arises if we insist on placing the lights at points of a fixed lattice L: how far from K must the lights be then? We discuss this problem\, producing a bound on this distance\, which depends on certain orthogonality and symmetry properties of the lattice in question. Interestingly\, for some nice classes of lattices\, a bound independent of L can be produced. URL:https://colleges.claremont.edu/ccms/event/on-the-illumination-problem-for-convex-sets/ LOCATION:Estella 2113 CATEGORIES:Algebra / Number Theory / Combinatorics Seminar END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250212T161500 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250212T173000 DTSTAMP:20260506T130709 CREATED:20250125T041900Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250204T061130Z UID:3644-1739376900-1739381400@colleges.claremont.edu SUMMARY:CCMS Colloquium: Stochastic Agent-Based Models in Mathematical Biology (Nabil Fadai\, University of Nottingham) DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Nabil Fadai\, Professor of Mathematical Biology\, University of Nottingham \nTitle: Stochastic Agent-Based Models in Mathematical Biology \nAbstract: In the last decade\, there has been a movement to describe biological and social systems via agent-based models\, which track individual agents (organisms\, cells\, people) and their environment through a set of deterministic and probabilistic rules. In this talk\, we examine how these local individual-based mechanisms translate into global population dynamics. In particular\, we will consider the Allee effect in population models\, which were originally proposed to describe population dynamics that cannot be explained by exponential and logistic growth models. Using stochastic individual-based models\, we can obtain a modelling framework that translates particular global Allee effects to specific individual-based mechanisms. This modelling framework is then extended to applications in the social sciences\, including the modelling of sports riots and panic-buying. \nBio: Nabil  Fabir is an assistant professor at the University of Nottingham\, whose research focuses on employing reaction-diffusion equations and agent-based modelling to describe physical phenomena in a variety of applications. Originally from the west coast of Canada\, Nabil completed his PhD in the Industrially Focused Mathematical Modelling doctoral training centre at the University of Oxford in 2018. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane\, Australia\, and has been at Nottingham since 2020. In addition to his research in industrial mathematics and mathematical biology\, Nabil is passionate about inclusive curriculum and accessible teaching to undergraduate students. \n  URL:https://colleges.claremont.edu/ccms/event/ccms-colloquium-nabil-fadai-university-of-nottingham/ LOCATION:Argue Auditorium\, Pomona College\, 610 N. College Ave.\, Claremont\, CA\, 91711\, United States CATEGORIES:Colloquium ORGANIZER;CN="Bahar Acu":MAILTO:Bahar_Acu@pitzer.edu GEO:34.0999157;-117.7142668 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Argue Auditorium Pomona College 610 N. College Ave. Claremont CA 91711 United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=610 N. College Ave.:geo:-117.7142668,34.0999157 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250215T090000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250215T170000 DTSTAMP:20260506T130709 CREATED:20250117T153752Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250211T005046Z UID:3632-1739610000-1739638800@colleges.claremont.edu SUMMARY:"The alchemy of mixing mathematics" a one-day workshop in the history and philosophy of mathematics DESCRIPTION:This one-day workshop assembles diverse perspectives from the history and philosophy of mathematics to examine ways in which mathematics is applied and impure. Topics will range from applications of mathematics in the natural and social sciences to impure proofs that transcend a single mathematical domain.  \nPlease RSVP here by Monday\, February 10th to attend the workshop and identify any dietary restrictions. \nLocation: Avery 201\, Pitzer College \n\nSchedule of talks\n9:35 Welcome and opening remarks \n9:40 E. A. Hunter (University of Chicago) on “Tradition at Play: Reassessing Archimedes’ Measurement of the Circle” \n10:30 Coffee/tea break \n10:50 Erich Reck (UC Riverside) on “Structuralist Understanding in Mathematical Practice” \n11:50 Lunch break \n1:00 Patrick Ryan (Chapman University) on “Impurity\, Simplicity\, and Explanatory Proof” \n2:00 Claudio Gómez-Gonzáles (Carleton College) on “Plants of slow growth: reducing coefficients and sustaining mathematics” \n3:00 Coffee/tea break \n3:20 Emrys King (Pomona College) on “The Mixing of Eugenics and Statistics in English-Language Pedagogy Across the 20th Century” \n3:50 Ainslee Archibald and Jane Panangaden (Pitzer College) on “A Close-Reading of ‘Sterilization for Human Betterment'” \n4:40 (snack) mix post-conference reception \n\nAbstracts\nE. A. Hunter (University of Chicago) on “Tradition at Play: Reassessing Archimedes’ Measurement of the Circle“ \nabstract: No other text in the Archimedean corpus has a richer history than Measurement of the Circle. Such richness comes at a price\, however\, as many scholars doubt the authenticity of the extant text\, citing its seemingly negligent argumentation and the triviality of the second proposition\, which also relies on the third’s approximation of pi. These qualities are at odds with our image of Archimedes\, leading modern editors to modify the text: E.J. Dijksterhuis relegates proposition two and Thomas Heath omits it entirely. This presentation challenges the assumption that the primary aim of ancient Greek mathematicians was axiomatic-deductive rigor. Instead\, it situates Measurement of the Circle within its broader literary and intellectual context—one with its own traditions and textual conventions. Through a close analysis of the rhetorical techniques and structural features of the propositions\, this presentation reevaluates the text’s authenticity and demonstrates how the propositions function within this framework. While the authenticity of any ancient work will always remain open to debate\, a key takeaway is the playfulness present in Archimedes’ mathematical writing. The presentation concludes by reflecting on the fragility of our connection to ancient Greek mathematics and the ways in which modern expectations shape the evaluation of historical sources. \nErich Reck (UC Riverside) on “Structuralist Understanding in Mathematical Practice” \nabstract: When it comes to structuralism in the philosophy of mathematics\, the focus is often on metaphysical issues\, sometimes supplemented by basic epistemological questions.  But as I have argued elsewhere\, mathematical structuralism had its origins primarily in certain methodological developments\, from the late 19th century on\, that added up to “modern mathematics”.  This brings “methodological structuralism” into the center of attention.  As a next step\, I will now consider how these developments brought with them several distinctive levels or kinds of mathematical understanding.  For illustration I will go through a number of examples\, ranging from Dedekind through Hilbert\, Noether\, and Bourbaki to recent mathematics.  In doing so\, I will attempt to clarify the sense in which certain kinds of “understanding” are important goals in mathematical practice. \nPatrick Ryan (Chapman University) on “Impurity\, Simplicity\, and Explanatory Proof” \nabstract: In this talk\, I will argue for an association between impure proofs and explanatory proofs in contemporary mathematics. Broadly speaking\, a proof of a theorem ϕ is said to be impure if it draws on what is “extrinsic\,” “distant\,” or “foreign” to the content of ϕ. In a similarly broad fashion\, a proof π of ϕ is said to be explanatory if the proof shows why ϕ is true\, thereby distinguishing π from other proofs merely showing that ϕ is true. My earlier work has aimed to show how it is even possible for an impure proof to be explanatory. Here\, I aim to show how an impure proof can actually generate explanatory power. My contention is that this often occurs because the impure resources produce a particular kind of simplicity that I call “conceptual speed-up.” I justify my philosophical claims via an examination of two central number-theoretic results\, Szemerédi’s theorem and the Prime Number Theorem\, and various of their proofs. Finally\, I conclude by discussing what my analysis shows about the nature of explanation in mathematics. \nClaudio Gómez-Gonzáles (Carleton College) on “Plants of slow growth: reducing coefficients and sustaining mathematics” \nabstract: In this talk\, we offer a concrete\, visual\, and historical introduction to resolvent degree (RD)\, an invariant that aspires to quantify just how hard solving algebraic equations can be. This overview makes contact with the origins of topology\, miracles of classical algebraic geometry\, and Klein’s “hypergalois” program\, which dare us to push beyond the solvable/unsolvable dichotomy. Throughout the talk\, we will reflect on the past and future of resolvent problems\, institutional processes that shape mathematical consensus\, and what we do and do not know about RD. Ultimately\, we seek a deeper understanding of how mathematical institutions sustain themselves\, particularly in the context of accelerating environmental\, economic\, and geopolitical crises. \nEmrys King (Pomona College) on “The Mixing of Eugenics and Statistics in English-Language Pedagogy Across the 20th Century” \nabstract: Today\, we find ourselves surrounded by statistics and data. However\, the omnipresence of statistical methods is a new phenomenon. The first extension of the method of least squares as a means to characterize non-observational error was by Sir Francis Galton\, in studies of heredity in the pursuit of eugenics. The initial studies published by Galton were soon extended by Karl Pearson\, a professor of statistics and professed eugenicist. I argue that the eugenic beliefs of these men fueled their pioneering studies of linear regression and thus influenced the statistical tools themselves. This merits a further evaluation of the presence of eugenic ideology statistical pedagogy post-Galton. To begin tackling this evaluation\, I present a preliminary review of statistics textbooks from 1880-1970\, assessed for their citation and/or approval of eugenic ideology\, or lack thereof. \nAinslee Archibald and Jane Panangaden (Pitzer College) on “A Close-Reading of ‘Sterilization for Human Betterment'” \nabstract: The Human Betterment Foundation was a pro-eugenic sterilization think-tank and propaganda organization that operated in Pasadena between 1928 and 1942. At the end of 1929 its founder Ezra Gosney and employee Paul Popenoe published a short booklet entitled “Sterilization for Human Betterment: A Summary of results of 6000 Operations in California\, 1909-1929” in which they lay out their case for the necessity\, safety\, and desirability of eugenic sterilization. In this talk we explore differences between the published version of this booklet  and an earlier draft with handwritten edits which is located in the Gosney Papers collection of the Caltech archives. We pay special attention to the authors’ use of data and statistics in their arguments while using a variety of archival documents to track their sources and methods of analysis. URL:https://colleges.claremont.edu/ccms/event/the-alchemy-of-mixing-mathematics/ LOCATION:CA CATEGORIES:History and Philosophy of Mathematics Seminar END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250217T161500 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250217T171500 DTSTAMP:20260506T130709 CREATED:20250130T002710Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250210T172352Z UID:3665-1739808900-1739812500@colleges.claremont.edu SUMMARY:Applied Math Seminar: Denis Gaidashev (Uppsala University) DESCRIPTION:Title: Renormalization and wild attractors for Fibonacci maps \nAbstract: A Fibonacci map is a piecewise defined map of a subset of an interval I onto I with a unique critical point of order d whose orbit undergoes nearest returns at Fibonacci times. It has been shown by Bruin\, Keller\, Nowicki and van Strien that such maps exhibit “wild” attractors: Cantor sets of zero Lebesgue measure whose basin of attraction is meager but has positive Lebesgue measure. We will discuss real renormalization\, and a trichotomy for Fibonacci maps\, similar to the Avila-Lyubich trichotomy for Feigenbaum Julia sets\, which\, in particular\, allows us to show that Fibonacci maps admit wild attractors for d=5.1\, and do not for d=3.9 (and\, conjecturally\, for 2