Title: An ideal convergence: an example in noncommutative metric geometry Abstract: The ability to calculate the distance between sets (rather than just distance between points) has found applications in geometry and group theory as well as various branches of applied mathematics. The Hausdorff distance and the Gromov-Hausdorff distance are standard distances used in these applications. […]
Title: How do zebrafish get their stripes — or spots? Abstract: Many natural and social systems involve individual agents coming together to create group dynamics, whether the agents are drivers in a traffic jam, voters in an election, or locusts in a swarm. Self-organization also occurs at much smaller scales in biology, though, and here […]
Title: Groups, Graphs and Trees Abstract: What do we mean by the geometry of a group? Groups seem like very abstract objects when we first study them, and it's natural to ask whether we can visualize them in some way. Given a group with a finite set of generators and relators, I will describe a […]
Title: Trace Ideals and Endomorphism Rings Abstract: In many branches of mathematics, the full set of "functions" between two objects exhibits remarkable structure; it often forms a group and in some special cases it forms a ring. In this talk, we will discuss this phenomenon in Commutative Algebra. In particular, we will talk about the […]
Title: Puzzling Permutations Abstract: Permutations are one of the most fundamental notions in mathematics. In this talk, we will discuss a visual representation of permutations and introduce some games one can play to help "see" different properties. These puzzling games can be used to provide insight into deeper mathematical content as well. Time permitting, we […]
Sam Nelson will wow us with his maths.
Robert Bowden will tell us fantastic things he did at PSU.
Jim Hoste will do an interpretive knot dance.
Title: Untying Knots with Neural Nets Abstract: Neural networks can transform 3-dimensional data in a manner reminiscent of an ambient isotopy. With some modifications, a neural network can be trained to manipulate the vertices of a knot while respecting its topological structure. We use the discrete Mo ̈bius energy as a loss function to incentivize […]
Title: Chebyshev Threadings in Skein Algebras for Punctured Surfaces Abstract: Skein algebras are algebras of links in a surface quotiented by diagram-based equivalence relations based on the Kauffman bracket. In the case of surfaces with punctures, the skein algebra is generated by links as well as arcs between the punctures, and there are additional skein […]
Title: Cellular resolutions of the diagonal and exceptional collections for toric Deligne-Mumford stacks Abstract: Beilinson gave a resolution of the diagonal for complex projective space which yields a strong, full exceptional collection of line bundles. Bayer-Popescu-Sturmfels generalized Beilinson's result to a cellular resolution of the diagonal for what they called "unimodular" toric varieties (a more restrictive […]
