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The AMS Student Chapter Seminar is an informal, graduate student-run seminar on a wide range of mathematical topics. Pastries (usually donuts) will be provided.
The AMS Student Chapter Seminar (aka Donut Seminar) is an informal, graduate student seminar on a wide range of mathematical topics. The goal of the seminar is to promote community building and give graduate students an opportunity to communicate fun, accessible math to their peers in a stress-free (but not sugar-free) environment. Pastries (usually donuts) will be provided.


* '''When:''' Wednesdays, 3:30 PM – 4:00 PM
* '''When:''' Wednesdays, 3:30 PM – 4:00 PM
* '''Where:''' Van Vleck, B115
* '''Where:''' Van Vleck, 9th floor lounge (unless otherwise announced)
* '''Organizers:''' Daniel Hast, Ryan Julian, Cullen McDonald, Zachary Charles
* '''Organizers:''' Ivan Aidun, Kaiyi Huang, Ethan Schondorf


Everyone is welcome to give a talk. To sign up, please contact one of the organizers with a title and abstract. Talks are 30 minutes long and should avoid assuming significant mathematical background beyond first-year graduate courses.
Everyone is welcome to give a talk. To sign up, please contact one of the organizers with a title and abstract. Talks are 25 minutes long and should avoid assuming significant mathematical background beyond first-year graduate courses.


The schedule of talks from past semesters can be found [[AMS Student Chapter Seminar, previous semesters|here]].
The schedule of talks from past semesters can be found [[AMS Student Chapter Seminar, previous semesters|here]].


== Fall 2016 ==
== Fall 2023==


=== October 12, Soumya Sankar ===
===September 7, Alex Mine===
Title: My Favorite Fact about Continued Fractions


Title: Primes of certain forms and covering systems
===September 14, Mei Rose Connor ===
Title: All Things Necessary and Possible: an introduction to the Kripke semantics of modal logic


Abstract: A lot of classical questions revolve around primes of the form 2^n + k, where k is an odd integer. I will talk about such primes, or the lack thereof, and use this to convert coffee into covering systems. Time permitting, I'll talk about a few cool results and conjectures related to the notion of covering systems.
Abstract: Modal logic is a branch of formal logic with far–reaching applications to fields such as philosophy, mathematics, computer science, and other parts of logic itself. It deals with which propositions, some of which are necessarily true (in the words of philosophy, a priori) and some of which are possibly true (analogously, a posteriori). But this will not be a philosophy talk. This talk will cover the notation, syntax, and one choice of semantics for modal logic known as the Kripke semantics. The Kripke semantics is a powerful tool that allows us to make connections between modal statements and first–order (or higher–order) logic ones. Along the way, the talk will explore how the simple symbols □ and ♢ can help to model ethics, represent the knowledge of individuals and even lead to an elegant gateway into the First Incompleteness result.


=== October 19, Daniel Hast ===
===September 21, Sun Woo Park ===
Title: What I did in my military service II (A functorial formulation of deep learning algorithms)


Title: A combinatorial lemma in linear algebra
Abstract: Even though deep learning algorithms (say convolutional neural networks, graph neural networks, and attention-transformers) show outstanding performances in executing certain tasks, there are also certain tasks that these algorithms do not perform well. We'll try to give a naive attempt to understand why such problems can occur. Similar to last semester, I will once again recall what I was interested in during the last few months of my 3-year military service in South Korea.


Abstract: I'll talk about a fun little lemma in linear algebra and its combinatorial interpretation. (It might be "well-known" to someone, but I'd never heard of it before.) If there's time, I'll discuss some possible generalizations.
===September 28, Caroline Nunn===
Title: Phinary Numbers


=== October 26, Brandon Alberts ===
Abstract: Everyone and their grandmother knows about binary numbers.  But do you know about phinary numbers?  In this talk, we will explore the fun consequences of using an irrational number base system.  We will define phinary representations of real numbers and explore which real numbers can be written using finite or recurring phinary representations. 


Title: An Introduction to Matroids
===October 5, Gabriella Brown===
Title: Topological Entropy in Shift Spaces


Abstract: What if you wanted to do linear algebra, but couldn't use addition or scalar multiplication? Can we still have a notion of independence and bases? The answer is yes, and these are called matroids. Not only will I introduce matroids, but I will give an example that shows not all matroids arise from vector spaces.
Abstract: Entropy is a concept that many STEM disciplines engage with, which results in many different perspectives on what exactly it is. This talk will introduce the perspective of symbolic dynamics by defining shifts of finite type and showing how to compute their topological entropy.


=== November 2, Vlad Matei ===
===October 12, Nakid Cordero===
Title: How to prove the Riemann Hypothesis: a logician's approach


Title: Hadamard Matrices
Abstract: ''Hint:'' ''Prove that you cannot disprove it.''


Abstract: A Hadamard matrix is a square matrix whose entries are either +1 or −1 and whose rows are mutually orthogonal. The most important open question in the theory of Hadamard matrices is that of existence. The Hadamard conjecture proposes that a Hadamard matrix of order 4k exists for every positive integer k. The Hadamard conjecture has also been attributed to Paley, although it was considered implicitly by others prior to Paley's work.
===October 19, Ari Davidovsky===
Title: Using Ultrafilters in Additive Combinatorics


=== November 9, David Bruce ===
Abstract: The goal of this talk is to introduce the idea of ultrafilters and show how they help us prove some cool results from additive combinatorics. The main result proved will be Hindman's Theorem which states if we partition the natural numbers into finitely many sets then one of these sets A contains an infinite subset B such that the sum of any finitely many distinct elements in B will always be in A.


Title: Some Numbers Are Sometimes Bigger Than Others (Sometimes...)
===October 26, Otto Baier===
Title: "Circulant Matrices and the Discrete Fourier Transform"


Abstract: I will write down two numbers and show that one of them is larger than the other.
Abstract: "Have you ever tried to use a finite difference method on a differential equation with periodic boundary conditions and said, 'I wonder how I could find the eigenvalues of this matrix analytically'? No? Well either way, you're going to find out!


=== November 16, Solly Parenti ===
===November 2, Speaker TBA===
Title:


Title: TBA
Abstract:


Abstract: TBA
===November 9, Owen Goff===
Title:


=== November 30, TBA ===
Abstract:


=== December 7, Will Mitchell ===
===November 16, Speaker TBA===
Title:


Title: An unsolved isomorphism problem from plane geometry
Abstract:


Abstract: A geometric n-configuration is a collection of points and lines in the Euclidean plane such that each point lies on exactly n lines and each line passes through n points. While the study of 3-configurations dates to the nineteenth century, the first example of a 4-configuration appeared only in 1990.  I will say a few things about 4-configurations and state an unsolved problem, and I hope that someone in the audience will decide to work on it.  There will be nice pictures and a shout-out to the singular value decomposition.
===November 23, CANCELLED FOR THANKSGIVING===


=== December 14, TBA ===
===November 30, Speaker TBA===
Title:
 
Abstract:
 
===December 7, Speaker TBA===
Title:
 
Abstract:
 
===December 14, Maybe Cancelled?===

Latest revision as of 22:24, 25 October 2023

The AMS Student Chapter Seminar (aka Donut Seminar) is an informal, graduate student seminar on a wide range of mathematical topics. The goal of the seminar is to promote community building and give graduate students an opportunity to communicate fun, accessible math to their peers in a stress-free (but not sugar-free) environment. Pastries (usually donuts) will be provided.

  • When: Wednesdays, 3:30 PM – 4:00 PM
  • Where: Van Vleck, 9th floor lounge (unless otherwise announced)
  • Organizers: Ivan Aidun, Kaiyi Huang, Ethan Schondorf

Everyone is welcome to give a talk. To sign up, please contact one of the organizers with a title and abstract. Talks are 25 minutes long and should avoid assuming significant mathematical background beyond first-year graduate courses.

The schedule of talks from past semesters can be found here.

Fall 2023

September 7, Alex Mine

Title: My Favorite Fact about Continued Fractions

September 14, Mei Rose Connor

Title: All Things Necessary and Possible: an introduction to the Kripke semantics of modal logic

Abstract: Modal logic is a branch of formal logic with far–reaching applications to fields such as philosophy, mathematics, computer science, and other parts of logic itself. It deals with which propositions, some of which are necessarily true (in the words of philosophy, a priori) and some of which are possibly true (analogously, a posteriori). But this will not be a philosophy talk. This talk will cover the notation, syntax, and one choice of semantics for modal logic known as the Kripke semantics. The Kripke semantics is a powerful tool that allows us to make connections between modal statements and first–order (or higher–order) logic ones. Along the way, the talk will explore how the simple symbols □ and ♢ can help to model ethics, represent the knowledge of individuals and even lead to an elegant gateway into the First Incompleteness result.

September 21, Sun Woo Park

Title: What I did in my military service II (A functorial formulation of deep learning algorithms)

Abstract: Even though deep learning algorithms (say convolutional neural networks, graph neural networks, and attention-transformers) show outstanding performances in executing certain tasks, there are also certain tasks that these algorithms do not perform well. We'll try to give a naive attempt to understand why such problems can occur. Similar to last semester, I will once again recall what I was interested in during the last few months of my 3-year military service in South Korea.

September 28, Caroline Nunn

Title: Phinary Numbers

Abstract: Everyone and their grandmother knows about binary numbers. But do you know about phinary numbers? In this talk, we will explore the fun consequences of using an irrational number base system. We will define phinary representations of real numbers and explore which real numbers can be written using finite or recurring phinary representations.

October 5, Gabriella Brown

Title: Topological Entropy in Shift Spaces

Abstract: Entropy is a concept that many STEM disciplines engage with, which results in many different perspectives on what exactly it is. This talk will introduce the perspective of symbolic dynamics by defining shifts of finite type and showing how to compute their topological entropy.

October 12, Nakid Cordero

Title: How to prove the Riemann Hypothesis: a logician's approach

Abstract: Hint: Prove that you cannot disprove it.

October 19, Ari Davidovsky

Title: Using Ultrafilters in Additive Combinatorics

Abstract: The goal of this talk is to introduce the idea of ultrafilters and show how they help us prove some cool results from additive combinatorics. The main result proved will be Hindman's Theorem which states if we partition the natural numbers into finitely many sets then one of these sets A contains an infinite subset B such that the sum of any finitely many distinct elements in B will always be in A.

October 26, Otto Baier

Title: "Circulant Matrices and the Discrete Fourier Transform"

Abstract: "Have you ever tried to use a finite difference method on a differential equation with periodic boundary conditions and said, 'I wonder how I could find the eigenvalues of this matrix analytically'? No? Well either way, you're going to find out!

November 2, Speaker TBA

Title:

Abstract:

November 9, Owen Goff

Title:

Abstract:

November 16, Speaker TBA

Title:

Abstract:

November 23, CANCELLED FOR THANKSGIVING

November 30, Speaker TBA

Title:

Abstract:

December 7, Speaker TBA

Title:

Abstract:

December 14, Maybe Cancelled?