Upcoming events
Past events
Wednesday, April 16, 2008 5-7 PM
Breaking the ice: The melting of ice caps and non-linear heat equations
RLM 12.104 [poster]
Wednesday, April 9, 2008 5-7 PM
Abelian Sandpiles and My Favorite Open Math Problem, by Geir Helleloid
RLM 12.104
The abelian sandpile model was invented by physicists to
study physical phenomena like avalanches, but the idea was quickly
co-opted by mathematicians who realized that they could do a lot of
fun mathematics with the model. In fact, playing around with the
model feels like playing a game, so it is sometimes called the
chip-firing game. I'll show you a lot of the math behind the model,
focusing on the group-theoretic aspects. You don't need to know
anything about group theory though; in fact, coming to this talk is a
good way to find out what a group is! Highlights will include crazy
and beautiful fractal-like images and simulations, the entire audience
standing up to physically compute sandpile addition, and my favorite
open math problem.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008 5-7 PM
Public Key Cryptography, by Brendan Younger
RLM 12.104
Public-key cryptography allows people to send encrypted messages to
each other without ever having to get together to share a common
secret. This makes it particularly attractive for performing secure
transactions over the internet or sending super-secret spy messages.
It's also rather intriguing in that it requires a "trap-door"
operation which is very easy to perform in one direction and very
difficult to perform the inverse of. In this talk, I will discuss the
RSA cryptosystem and some of the attacks against it. I will then try
to give an overview of elliptic curve cryptosystems and at least point
out the difficulties in choosing appropriate parameters. If time
permits, I will discuss cryptosystems based on the knapsack problem
and why those have failed.Wednesday, March 26, 2008 5-7 PM
The Music of the Spheres, by Alex Kahle
RLM 12.104
Exotic spheres, infinite spheres, hairy spheres... who the humble sphere had so many surprises?Friday, March 21, 2008 3-4 PM
Dean's Scholars presents computer scientist Ron Graham
ACES 2.302
There is no question that the recent advent of the modern computer has had a dramatic impact on what mathematicians do and on how they do it. However, there is increasing evidence that many apparently simple problems may in fact be forever beyond any conceivable computer attack. In this talk, Dr. Ron Graham will describe a variety of mathematical problems in which computers either have had, may have or will probably never have a significant role in their solutions.
Ron Graham was chief scientist at AT&T Bell Labs before taking a job at the University of California-San Diego in the Computer Science department. Dr. Graham is a former president of the American Mathematical Society. He has also been featured on Ripley's Believe It or Not as a talented mathematician, juggler, and trampolinist while also holding a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for creating the worlds largest number used in a serious mathematical proof. He has produced over 300 papers, including several with his friend Paul Erdos, and won the annual Steele Prize for lifetime achievement from the American Mathematical Society in 2003. Without a doubt, Ron Graham is one of the world's foremost mathematicians in discrete mathematics.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008 5-7 PM
Tilings: a mathematical model for crystals and quasicrystals, by Natalie Frank
RLM 12.104 [notes]
Crystals are solids that have well-ordered, repeating atomic structures. Tilings of R^2, R^3, or even R^n are mathematical models of this structure. In the laboratory, scientists can measure the diffraction spectrum of a solid by shining x-rays through it. If the material is a crystal, the spectrum will have sharply defined brights spots known as Bragg peaks. Diffraction spectra can also be computed for a tiling, and if it is periodic, the spectrum will show Bragg peaks. Until the 1980's, it was thought that only crystals produce Bragg peaks. It was then that a new form of matter was discovered, one that had Bragg peaks in its spectrum, but could not have the well-ordered atomic structure of a crystal. This form of matter was named quasicrystal. We will discuss some of what is known about quasicrystals and their tiling counterparts.Wednesday, March 12, 2008 5-7 PM
Spring Break
RLM 12.104
No School!Wednesday, March 5, 2008 5-7 PM
Talk by Nick Rauh
RLM 12.104 [notes]
TBAWednesday, February 27, 2008 5-7 PM
Huh? Mathematicians study knots just for the sake of it?, by Emily Landes
RLM 12.104 [poster] [notes]
Take two ropes, loosely tie each into the same knot and fuse together the
two free ends of each strand. Drop both knots on the ground. There, they
each appear as a concoction of over and under crossings. Most likely,
these identical knots will fall differently. Now work backwards. Start
with two 2D concoctions of over and under crossings. When do they
correspond to the same 3D knot? How can we be sure?
The classification of knots involves a search for knot invariants, properties that remain unchanged under three specific perturbations called Reidemeister moves. One such invariant is the Khovanov homology of a knot projection. As the machinery behind this invariant requires significant development, I will use my talk to present the intuitive picture.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008 5-7 PM
The Million-Dollar Question: Is God a Geometer?, by Prof. Lorenzo Sadun
RLM 12.104 [notes]
Yang-Mills Theory is a way to cast fundamental physics in
geometric terms. One of the million-dollar "millenium" problems posted
by the Clay Institute is to rigorously construct a Yang-Mills theory in
4 dimensions and prove some properties about it. I'll go over the
history of geometric constructs in physics, and explain what the
Yang-Mills problem is all about.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008 5-7 PM
What are the possible shapes of space?, by Professor Dan Knopf
RLM 12.104 [poster] [notes]
Manifolds are objects (like curves, surfaces, and our
universe) that look like Euclidean space locally but whose global
picture may be much different. We'll discuss some of what interests
mathematicians when they study the topology and geometry of such
objects. For 2-dimensional manifolds, a strong connection between their
topology and geometry was known since the nineteenth century. For
3-dimensional manifolds, a similar connection has only recently been
verified. We'll talk about this connection and some of the big ideas
behind its proof. For 4-dimensional manifolds, we aren't even sure yet
what the right questions are. Maybe you will study these some day.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008 5-7 PM
Ramsey Theory and Distortion: Is Euclidean geometry inevitable?, by Professor Ted Odell
RLM 12.104 [poster] [notes]
An example of a Ramsey theorem is that if we have 17 red and
blue balls then there are at least 9 red balls or else 9 blue balls.
We will discuss some more dramatic extensions of this theorem and then
move on to different geometries in 2,3,4, or n- dimensional or even
infinite dimensional space. As we shall explain the Ramsey problem in this
setting is "Can you truly distort Euclidean space?"
Wednesday, January 30, 2008 5-7 PM
Confession of a Physicist to Mathematicians, by Professor Cecile DeWitt-Morette
RLM 12.104 [poster] [notes]
Listening to what mathematicians
say is sometimes good and sometimes bad.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008 5-7 PM
Knot Theory and DNA, by Professor Jennifer Mann
RLM 12.104 [poster] [notes]
In our daily lives we encounter tangling and knotting in long, flexible
objects such as extension cords and strings of Christmas tree lights.
Often this knotting is an annoyance, and sometimes it compromises the
function of the cord or string. Knotting also occurs in DNA. We will
discuss the biological consequences of DNA knots and how DNA knots are
resolved.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007 5-7 PM
Beyond Curves and Surfaces by Prof. Dan Freed
RLM 12.104 [poster]
Curves are 1-dimensional and surfaces 2-dimensional. Geometers
study shapes of arbitrary--even infinite--dimension. We will
explore this idea, how such shapes (called manifolds) arise, and
talk about some exciting recent work about 3-dimensional smooth
manifolds.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007 5-7 PM
Movie Night!
RLM 12.166 [poster]
Join us for another mathy movie: ENIGMA, starring Dougray Scott and Kate Winslet.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007 5-7 PM
Group Action for Science Nerds by Brian Katz
RLM 12.104 [poster]
In modern algebra, groups have become a very abstract idea, a
structure worth investigating for its own sake. But this is not how groups
came to be, and it's not how groups are used. Here's how you should think
about groups, and all you need to know to understand this talk:
GROUPS DO THINGS.
The quintessential example of a group is the symmetries of some physical object, the ways to transform the object in space that make it look the same, like rotating a square 90 degrees. In particular, the symmetries of a molecule tell us how it will react to light, and conversely, we can use light to predict the symmetry and shape of molecules (which are way too small to look at). Hopefully this talk will be interesting to both mathematics and chemistry students.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007 5-7 PM
Elliptic Curves: The Curves that keep on giving by Kim Hopkins
RLM 12.104 [poster]
Elliptic curves have been a subject of great interest for mathematicians from the 18th century to present day. They combine algebra, number theory, and geometry in order to address problems such as the congruent number problem, Diophantine equations, and Fermat’s Last Theorem. They also provide a useful approach to public-key cryptography. In this talk we will explain the basics of elliptic curves and explain how they can be applied in the areas described above.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007 5-7 PM
Show and Tell!
RLM 12.104
Today, a few members of the Math Club will show off some nifty mathematical tricks and treats, including mental divisibility tests and non-constructions using a straight-edge and compass. Spooky!Wednesday, October 24, 2007 5-7 PM
Info session: How to Use LaTeX
RLM 12.104 [poster]
Eric and Mark will give a demonstration of how to use LaTeX to produce beautiful mathematical documents. We will also provide a style sheet to get you started.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007 5-7 PM
Annual Women in Mathematics Reception
RLM 12.104 [poster]
Pizza and chocolate of some sort will be served. A group of faculty members and graduate students will talk about career options and choices.
Thursday, October 11, 2007 5-7 PM
Movie Night: {proof}
RLM 4.102 [poster]
Please note the special time/place of this week's Math Club meeting: Thursday night at 5pm in RLM 4.102, we will be watching {proof}, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins, and Jake Gyllenhaal.
Professor Vick will give a brief introduction to the movie, and refreshments will be served before the movie starts. Invite your friends! All undergraduates are invited!
Wednesday, October 3, 2007 5-7 PM
The Mathematics of Juggling by Henry Segerman
RLM 12.104 [poster]
How do you write down a juggling pattern? I'll talk about a system of
notation that partially answers this question, and led to the
discovery of many previously unknown patterns, as well as some
interesting combinatorial problems. There will be many demonstrations.
No prior juggling experience required.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007 5-7 PM
Fixed points and stormy weather by Professor Michael Starbird
RLM 12.104 [poster]
"Somewhere on Earth at this very moment there are two antipodal
points (that is, points directly opposite from one another through the
Earth) where the temperatures are identical and the pressures are also
identical. This meteorological fact follows immediately from the theorem
in topology known as the Borsuk-Ulam Theorem. Also, at this moment there
is a point on the Earth where the wind is not blowing. This other
meteorological fact follows from the Hairy Ball Theorem. We'll see neat
proofs of these and other facts whose primary tool is a wrapping rope."
Michael Starbird is Professor of Mathematics and a University Distinguished Teaching Professor at The University of Texas at Austin. He strives to present higher-level mathematics authentically to students and the general public and to teach thinking strategies that go beyond the mathematics. With those goals in mind, he wrote, with co-author Edward B. Burger, The Heart of Mathematics: An invitation to effective thinking, which won a 2001 Robert W. Hamilton Book Award and which is now used in hundreds of colleges and universities nationally each year. His promises to be an exciting talk!
Wednesday, September 19, 2007 5-7 PM
The Evolution of a Mathematician: To Grad School, and Beyond!
RLM 12.104 [poster]
This week we will have a panel consisting of faculty members and graduate students from UT discussing various topics concerning what it means to become a mathematician. We will go over things to think about as a math major, how to apply to graduate school, and we may even warn you about some signs that you may be turning into a mathematician.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007 5-7 PM
Filters and Social Choice, by David Jensen
RLM 12.104 [poster]
"When a large group of people have to make a decision together, bad things can happen. For example, in a strict plurality election system, it is possible for the majority of people to prefer any other candidate to the one that actually wins the election. It seems, then, that the plurality election system is unfair. What could we do to make it fair? Which election systems are the most fair? What does "fair" mean, anyway? We will consider these questions from a mathematical perspective, and we will discover a surprising answer."
David is a graduate student at UT, and in the past, he has given talks on the mathematics of juggling, nonstandard analysis, and Ramsey theory. This past summer, he was a counselor at Math Camp, where he taught algebraic geometry to high-school students from around the world.