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Welcome to Combinatorics and Optimization
Tutte's Distinguished Lecture Series
The very successful Tutte's 100th Distinguished Lecture Series has now completed. That success has led to a Tutte Distinguished Lecture once per term. The next lecture will happen in the Spring term.
*Recordings of occurred talks are all available on C&O's YouTube Channel.
Grad Studies: Fall 2020 applications now open
New Deadline: February 1, '20
News
- Jan. 6, 2021David Gosset's paper published in Nature Physics
C&O professor David Gosset has published a paper "Classical algorithms for quantum mean values" in Nature Physics.
- Nov. 13, 2020Collaborating to advance quantum technologies in Canada and the UK
Earlier this year, Canada and the United Kingdom (UK) joined together to put a call out for proposals of collaborations between leading-edge scientists and potential innovative users from industry and government sectors to accelerate the development of quantum technologies.
- Nov. 12, 2020Unsolved puzzles
“When I was a kid, I always begged my parents to buy me those little Mind Benders puzzles,” remembered Rose McCarty. “My favorite puzzles were the ones that were so difficult that I wasn’t sure whether or not I could actually solve them. At Waterloo Math, I’m the one coming up with different puzzles to solve. I have an opportunity to tackle big, imprecise, unwieldly problems that determine what my field will look like in 20 years.”
Events
- Jan. 21, 2021Algebraic Combinatorics Seminar - Jason Bell
Title: The growth of groups and algebras
Speaker: Jason Bell Affiliation: University of Waterloo Zoom: Contact Karen Yeats Abstract:
We give an overview of the theory of growth functions for associative algebras and explain their significance when trying to understand algebras from a combinatorial point of view. We then give a classification for which functions can occur as the growth function of a finitely generated associative algebra up to asymptotic equivalence. This is joint work with Efim Zelmanov.
- Jan. 22, 2021Tutte Colloquium - David Gosset
Title: Fast simulation of planar Clifford circuits
Speaker: David Gosset Aflliation: University of Waterloo Zoom: Please email Emma Watson Abstract:
Clifford circuits are a special family of quantum circuits that can be simulated on a classical computer in polynomial time using linear algebra. Recent work has shown that Clifford circuits composed of nearest-neighbor gates in planar geometries can solve certain linear algebra problems provably faster --as measured by circuit depth-- than classical computers.
- Jan. 29, 2021Tutte Colloquium - Michael Naehrig
Title: Finding twin smooth integers for isogeny-based cryptography
Speaker: Michael Naehrig Affliation: Microsoft Research Zoom: Please email Emma Watson Abstract:
Efficient and secure instantiations of cryptographic protocols require careful parameter selection. For the isogeny-based cryptographic protocol B-SIDH, a variant of the Supersingular-Isogeny Diffie Hellman (SIDH) key exchange, one needs to find two consecutive B-smooth integers of cryptographic size such that their sum is prime. The smaller the smoothness bound B is, the more efficient the protocol becomes. This talk discusses a sieving algorithm to find such twin smooth integers that uses solutions to the Prouhet-Tarry-Escott problem.