September 13: Sam Rizzo
Title: Humanity’s Greatest Theorem — The Theorema Egregium
Abstract: An interesting question is: “what is the most important theorem?” Friendships have been lost and enemies made over this very question. Clearly, the most important theorem is the theorem which contributes the most to your pizza eating ability! Therefore, the most important theorem in all of existence simply must be the Theorema Egregium! In this talk, I will unpack what this remarkable theorem says about the curvature of surfaces as well as some consequences that follow (both pizza-related and not).
October 11: Yixuan Huang
Title: Ramsey Number, the Impossibly Difficult Numbers
Abstract: A well-known quote from Paul Erdos, one of the most prolific mathematicians, reveals how hard it is to compute the Ramsey numbers, “Suppose aliens invade the earth and threaten to obliterate us in a year’s time, unless human beings can find the Ramsey number for red five and blue five. We could marshal the world’s best minds and fastest computers, and within a year we could probably calculate the value. If the aliens demanded the Ramsey number for red six and blue six, however, we would have no choice but to launch an attack.” But what is a Ramsey number, and why is it so hard to calculate?
October 25: Denali Relles
Title: Manifolds: Many Shapes
Abstract: One great way to do math is to look at the things around us, and think about ways to abstract away qualities until we can say something rigorous. Manifolds are one way to do this: most objects around us are manifolds, but by clarifying exactly what properties we are looking for we can think about lower dimensions and higher dimensions, and some weird stuff happens. We start with a simple circle, and we see how far we can go.
November 8: David Chan
Title: Math and Voting Systems
Abstract: The second Tuesday in November is always election day in America. In this talk, we will talk about the different systems of voting that are used in America and how the voting system itself can affect who wins. We will use math to work out the pros and cons of some of the most popular voting systems and see if we can come up with a “mathematically perfect voting system.”
December 6 (5:10pm- 6:10pm) : Aidan Lorenz
Title: The Mathematics of Rubik’s Cubes
Abstract: The Rubik’s Cube is a toy with which many of us are familiar: a cube where each face is a 3×3 grid of squares, each square with one of 6 colors. The objective is simple: given the cube in a scrambled state, perform rotations of the “layers” so that ultimately every face is comprised of squares with all the same color. In this talk we will investigate some of the mathematics of this well-known toy and hopefully we will learn how to solve it at the end. Bring your Rubik’s cube if you have one!