Gala re-opening (via Zoom): Lightning Round

Math for Math's Sake is (as of 26dec2021) under new management! I'm Tom Frenkel, the Grand Exalted Organizer ...

We will come back from a long hiatus (last meeting 04dec2019), with a Zoom get-together. For this meeting at least, we will have "lightning" (15 minutes or thereabouts) presentations from some of our members, who have been kind enough to volunteer.

We have 5 talks so far, which (taking miscellaneous schmoozing into account) might be enough for this session. But please let me know if you have any additional topics for a quick presentation. (Or a slow presentation, down the road, for that matter.)

----- BILL OF FARE -----

BRIAN --
The goat problem, as discussed in

https://www.quantamagazine.org/after-centuries-a-seemingly-simple-math-problem-gets-an-exact-solution-20201209/

EZRA --

"I have been focusing on statistics and probability and thought this (momath Peter Winkler) mindbenders puzzle would be worth thinking about.

"Given a set of unit disks (frisbees), if you put down a random set of points on the plane, can you cover them with non overlapping disks. It turns out that there is a somewhat elementary proof that you can do it for10 points using a probability argument (using expectation). It is known using more difficult methods for 12 points and is known not to be true for 42 points. Peter Winkler guesses the dividing line is about halfway between these 2 numbers.

"A 15 minute presentation would present the proof for 10 points and provide references to the work which provides the current upper and lower bounds."

KRYSTAL --

Title: "Isogenies, Elliptic Curves and Random Walks on Random Graphs"

"Isogeny-based (key exchange) cryptography as a solution is not new, but it is promising in the context of post-quantum cryptography. In 1996, Couveignes described the first cryptographical algorithm which used isogenies between elliptic curves over a finite field. In 1998, Lercier and Morain provided the first successful implementation of this scheme. There is, however, much work to be done for these systems to be practical, and implementable at the performance level required to be used in deployed systems today. My talk will be on isogenies in the context within the research I am currently doing and well-known cryptographic protocols such as Diffie-Hellman."

PETER --

Slowly Diverging Series. See Peter's description at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YYNcdNHK3R086ZHE5UsyNH4ExKdrx3jf/view?usp=sharing

TOM (your 'umble Organizer) --

"Archimedes' Hat Box Theorem" says that if you enclose a sphere in a cylinder, and make 2 slices with planes perpendicular to the cylinder's axis, the surface area enclosed by the slicing planes is the same for the sphere and the cylinder. I "discovered" a way to make this concept pretty intuitive, and hope to demonstrate how my reasoning works.

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Come back to visit this page -- as 04may2022 gets closer -- for likely additions and updates!