Tutte seminar - Geoff Whittle

Matroid representation over the reals

Abstract:

Traditionally interest in matroid representation theory has focussed on finite fields. But why not consider infinite fields, in particular the real numbers? Probably the reason for the neglect is that the news is pretty bad. But I will argue that the topic is of compelling interest and, while it is true that there is some really bad news about, there is hope that something can be said. The talk will essentially be a survey of what is known.