2:00 pm Thursday, March 22, 2007
Junior Number Theory: Properties of Wronskians by Mark Rothlisberger (UT Austin) in RLM 9.166
The Wronskian determinant of a set of functions can be used to test the linear independence of those functions: this is how it is used in ordinary differential equations. In this talk, I'll address the same idea from another point of view: given a collection of functions (in our case, polynomials) that are linearly independent, and therefore have a nonzero Wronskian, we can gain additional information about the Wronskian based on knowledge about the original functions. For example, we can easily estimate an upper bound for the degree of the Wronskian. I will present some basic lemmas about estimates we can make for other valuations of Wronskians, and, if time permits, discuss applications of the Wronskian. Submitted by
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