Send an e-mail to jmclaughl@wcupa.edu, if you would like to be on the e-mail list to receive advance notice of upcoming talks.

Previous Semesters: Spring 2009, Fall 2008, Spring 2008, Fall 2007, Spring 2007, Fall 2006, Summer 2006, Spring 2006,

Thursday, September 10th, 2009
3:15 - 4:15 pm in UNA 127
               Professor Michael Fisher (West Chester University)
               An Introduction to the Probabilistic Method
We will begin this seminar with a survey of some of the problems whose solutions have been found using the probabilistic method. In particular, we'll look at a bit of Ramsey theory, a few results in graph theory, and a result or two from combinatorics.

Thursday, September 17th, 2009
3:15 - 4:15 pm in UNA 127
               Professor Michael Fisher (West Chester University)
               The Probabilistic Method - II
(postponed)

Thursday, September 24th, 2009
3:30 - 4:30 pm in UNA 127
West Chester University Fall 2009 Mathematics Colloquium
               Professor Herbert Wilf (University of Pennsylvania)

We present a rapid method for the exact calculation of the cumulative distribution function of the maximum of multinomially distributed random variables.  The method runs in time O(mn), where m is the desired maximum and n is the number of variables.  We apply the method to the analysis of two situations in which an apparent clustering of cases of a disease in some locality has raised epidemiological concerns, and these concerns have been discussed in the recent literature.  We conclude that one of these clusters may be explained on purely random grounds, namely the leukemia cluster in Niles, IL, in 1956 –1960; whereas the other, a leukemia cluster in Fallon, NV, in 1999 –2001, may not.

Herbert Wilf is the Thomas A. Scott Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania.  He was founder of the Journal of Algorithms, and of the Electronic Journal of Combinatorics, and was Editor in Chief of those two plus the American Mathematical Monthly.  Professor Wilf won the Steele Prize of the AMS for Seminal Research Contribution in 1996, the Haimo Award of the MAA for distinguished teaching in 1998, and is the recipient of the 2004 Euler Medal of the Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications.  He is the author of A=B, generatingfunctionology, Algorithms and Complexity, and other books, as well as more than 170 research papers, mostly in combinatorial mathematics.  He was a private pilot for a hobby, from 1982-2002 and flew a Cessna 210 all over the USA.

For further information e-mail mfisher@wcupa.edu or sgupta@wcupa.edu

Thursday, October 1st, 2009
3:15 - 4:15 pm in UNA 127
               Professor Michael Fisher (West Chester University)
               The Probabilistic Method - II
I'll pick up where I left off three weeks ago and continue with examples from Combinatorics, combinatorial number theory, and disjoint pairs.  I will provide some background on the Erdos-Ko-Rado Theorem and give a probabilistic proof of it.  I'll finish with other basic techniques and examples.

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
3:20 - 4:10 pm in UNA 158
 West Chester University Fall 2009 Mathematics Colloquium                              Daniel Bennett Fagerburg (West Chester University Student)

I will discuss the history and motivation, as well as the theory of Einstien's Special Relativity. I will do so by examining \thought experiments" leading to numerous counter-intuitive results such as time dilation, the twin paradox, and relativistic length and mass. The talk will conclude with a mathematical derivation of the most famous equation in physics,

Thursday, October 8th, 2009
3:15 - 4:15 pm in UNA 127
               Professor Michael Fisher (West Chester University)
               The Probabilistic Method - III

Today: I'll talk about Disjoint Pairs, a result about Tournaments, Splitting Graphs, and finish up with two quick proofs of results about 2-colorings on K_n and K_{m,n}.

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
3:15 - 4:15 pm in UNA 158
               Professor Donald Saari (University of California at Irvine )
              

We vote -- for everything from what kind of pizza to order to the president of the U.S.  We also know that voting rules have flaws; sometimes the outcome is, well, highly questionable.  Why?  In this expository lecture, I will describe how bad -- actually, how chaotic -- the situation can be.  I will even show how you have a better chance of getting what you want in the decision process.  In doing so, I will show how it is mathematics that is providing insights into what happens and why.  Expect to leave this lecture worried about what happened in an election that was of importance to you; also expect to leave armed with knowledge about how to select an appropriate voting rule.

Donald Saari is a Distinguished Professor of Mathematics and of Economics as well as the Director of the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences at the University of California at Irvine. He received his undergraduate degree from Michigan Technological University and his PhD from Purdue University (advisor: Harry Pollard) where his thesis discussed the collision dynamics of the Newtonian N-body problem. After a postdoctoral position in the Yale University Astronomy Department, he joined the Mathematics Department at Northwestern University where he served as chair of the department and was the first Pancoe Professor of Mathematics. After three decades at Northwestern, in July 2000, he moved to California.

Saari’s research interests center on dynamical systems and their applications to mathematical physics (primarily the Newtonian N-body problem) as well as to mathematical issues from the social sciences coming from economics, voting theory, and evolutionary behavior. He is the past Chief Editor of the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society as well as serving on the editorial boards of several journals on analysis, dynamics, economics, and decision analysis. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Guggenheim Fellow, the past chair of the US National Committee of Mathematics, chair of the US delegation to the 2002 general assembly of the International Mathematical Union, and a member of several NRC committees including Math Science Education Board. He has honorary doctorates from Purdue, Université de Caen, and Michigan Technological University.

For further information e-mail mfisher@wcupa.edu or sgupta@wcupa.edu

Thursday, October 29th, 2009
3:15 - 4:15 pm in UNA 127
               Professor Michael Fisher (West Chester University)
               The Probabilistic Method - V

Today: I'll prove two results on balancing vectors, and a result about unbalancing lights

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
3:20 - 4:10 pm in UNA 155
West Chester University Fall 2009 Mathematics Colloquium
               Joel Kamm & Dale Siegenthaler(West Chester University)

A Proof that e is Transcendental

This talk will focus on a proof that Euler’s number e is transcendental. We will give a brief introduction to algebraic and transcendental numbers. The proof we will present is modified from the original first given by Charles Hermite in 1873.

Tea in the Students Lounge (UNA # 105) after the talk.

Note: Talks will be added to the schedule throughout the semester. Check back for updates.