The Stanford University Mathematical Organization hosts a weekly talk given by a professor, grad student, or visitor about undergraduate-accessible topics in pure and applied mathematics that go beyond the standard curriculum. The purpose of this series is to expose undergraduates to some topics not normally covered in the classroom, as well as to introduce them to Stanford's faculty and community. Talks will be accessible to freshmen in the 50-series.
The speaker series is held each Thursday from 4:15 to 5:05 PM in 380-380C (in the basement of the math building), unless otherwise noted. Food is provided afterwards. You can get 1 unit of credit for your attendance by signing up for MATH 196; of course, you're also welcome to just show up.
If you have any suggestions or would like to suggest a speaker, please e-mail Marc Rasi (marcgrr at stanford dot edu).
| September 27 | Professor Brian Conrad | ABC Conjecture |
| October 4 | Professor Ralph Cohen | Knots, Braids, and Strings |
| October 11 | Professor Rick Sommer | Using the infinite to describe large finite numbers |
| October 18 | Professor Persi Diaconis | Coincidences, Birthdays and Graph Coloring |
| October 25 | Nancy Rodriguez | Modeling Urban Crime |
| October 30 |
Professor Brian Conrad | Rubik, Escher, Bank$ Special Time, Date, Location! 7:30pm; Tuesday, October 30; Cubberly Auditorium. There will be no talk on Thursday, November 1 this week! Attendance not required for Math 196 credit. |
| November 2 | Professor Ken Ono (Emory) | Cool theorems in number theory proved by undergrads Special Date! Usual time and place. Attendance not required for Math 196 credit. |
| November 8 | Professor Sourav Chatterjee (NYU) | Nobel prizes and stable marriages |
| November 15 | Professor Susan Holmes | Can you hear the deciban? Decoding the Traffic from the Enigma Machine: Combining Group Theory, Statistics and Information Theory. |
| November 22 | No talk scheduled (Thanksgiving recess) | |
| November 29 | Otis Chodosh | Isoperimetric and Systolic Inequalities |
| December 6 | Professor John Stillwell (USF) | The story behind the Ford circles |
| January 10 | No talk this week | |
| January 17 | Professor Brian White | The Banach-Tarski Paradox |
| January 24 | Professor Jacob Lurie | Combinatorial Game Theory |
| January 31 | Professor Kannan Soundararajan | The Fifteen Theorem |
| February 7 | Daniel Litt | Zeros of Integer Linear Recurrences |
| February 14 | Professor Francisco Martin (Universidad de Granada) | Art and geometry in the Alhambra |
| February 21 | Professor Joe Keller | Mathematics and Sport |
| February 28 | Professor David Hoffman | Hanging with the Catenoid |
| March 7 | No talk this week | |
| March 14 | Professor Yakov Eliashberg | The Theory of Legendrian Knots |
| April 2 | Professor Cliff Taubes (Harvard) | Mysteries of 4 Dimensions Special Date! Usual time and place. |
| April 11 | Professor Robert Rhoades | How to Count the Rationals |
| April 18 | Kevin S. McCurley (Google Research) | The Mathematics of Similarity |
| April 25 | Professor Amir Dembo | Probabilistic Constructions (the legacy of Paul Erdos) |
| May 2 | Professor Andras Vasy | Inverting the X-ray transform |
| May 9 | Professor Tom Church | The prime-generating sequence that couldn't |
| May 14 | Professor Curtis T. McMullen (Harvard) | Mathematics as a Metaphor: From Curved Spaces to Quantum Topology Special Time, Date, Location! 7:30pm; Tuesday, May 14; Cubberley Auditorium. There will be no talk on Thursday, May 16 this week! Attendance not required for Math 196 credit. |
| May 23 | Professor Brian Conrad | Why did Deligne win the Abel Prize? |
| May 30 | Carrie Grimes (Google) | Estimating Rates of Change on the Web: Why do the math? |