Events - January 2018

Sam Harris, Department of Pure Mathematics, University of Waterloo

"Connes' embedding problem and quantum XOR games"

Ross Willard, Department of Pure Mathematics, University of Waterloo

"Boolean algebras, Part 3"

I’ll explain the tight relationship between Boolean algebras and Stone (or Boolean) topological spaces.

MC 5479

Tristan Freiberg, Department of Pure Mathematics, University of Waterloo

"The finer points of the distribution of primes"

I will explain why primes are like fatal horse kicks. 
The talk will be accessible and expository---if you know what a horse is, you're good to go!

MC 5403

Chris Schafhauser, Department of Pure Mathematics, University of Waterloo

"On the quantum group M_q(2)"

This is a continuation of Hongdi's talk last week where she introduced the quantum plane k_q(2).  We will discuss the quantum group M_q(2) and its relation to the quantum plane.

MC 5403

Robert Martin, University of Cape Town

"A multi-variable de Branges-Rovnyak model for row contractions"

Dustin Cartwright, University of Tennessee

"Topology of dual complexes"

Hongdi Huang, Department of Pure Mathematics, University of Waterloo

"Hopf Algebras GL_q(2) and SL_q(2)"

The algebra M_q(2) is the quotient of the free algebra k{a, b, c, d} by the two-sided ideal J_q  that is generated by some quadratic elements. In this talk, we will see how to reduce Hopf Algebra GL_q(2) and SL_q(2) from M_q(2).

MC 5403

Ross Willard, Department of Pure Mathematics, University of Waterloo

"Boolean algebras, part I"

I will present Stone’s classical result that every Boolean algebra is embeddable into a power set algebra, and describe the equivalence of Boolean algebras with Boolean rings.  Subsequent lectures will develop ultrafilters and Stone duality, on the way to explaining ultraproducts and proving a celebrated lemma of Jonsson.

MC 5403

Faustin Adiceam, Department of Pure Mathematics, University of Waterloo

"How far can you see in a forest?"

We will be answering the following question raised by Christopher Bishop: 'Suppose we stand in a forest with tree trunks of radius r > 0 and no two trees centered closer than unit distance apart. Can the trees be arranged so that we can never see further than some distance V < \infty, no matter where we stand and what direction we look in? What is the size of V in terms of r?'

MC 5417