When: 
Tuesday, April 2, 2013 - 12:20pm - 1:10pm
Where: 
Pardee 217
Presenter: 
Andrew Baxter
Price: 
Free
Abstract: I will present a tour of an active subfield of discrete mathematics: permutation patterns. We will consider permutations as lists of distinct integers, and study the patterns of highs and lows which appear. From this simple beginning, many interesting phenomena arise and this talk will provide a glimpse of many of these. We will start from the applied side, exploring problems related to sorting algorithms such as how to tell whether a given stack of randomly-numbered crates can be sorted with a forklift. From there we will consider counting problems such as the number of permutations which avoid certain patterns, and soon run into an easily stated problem that no one's been able to solve in 25 years of study.
Sponsored by: 
Mathematics Department, MAAD

Contact information

Name: 
c. jayne trent
Phone: 
610-330-5267
Email: 
trentj@lafayette.edu