Monday, Oct 3
MSCS Colloquium: Arithmetic statistics
Craig Westerland, Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota
This will be a talk about various number-theoretic conjectures and theorems from a probabilistic or distributional point of view. For instance, we can ask: what is the probability that an integer is squarefree? The answer is surprisingly easy to state, and allows us to reformulate the question in the language of field theory: can we count (asymptotically in X) the number of quadratic fields with discriminant less than X. All of these words will be explained, and we’ll illustrate them with a number of examples. This will lead us to a number of conjectures on related subjects, some of which have been recently resolved by Manjul Bhargava, a 2014 Fields Medalist.
3:30pm, RNS 310 (3:15pm cookies and conversation)
Tuesday, Oct 4
Psychology Seminar: Career Talk from a Clinical Psychologist
Dr. Charles Peterson
6:00 p.m., Buntrock 142
Dr. Charles Peterson ’70 will be giving a career talk about his time as a clinical psychologist and director of training in the various clinics in Minneapolis and Chicago and his journey into opening his private practice. He will be speaking about the challenges that a career in clinical psychology presents, the preparation needed to get into the career and his experience in the field in general.
Wednesday, Oct 5
No Seminars
Thursday, Oct 6
No Seminars
Friday, Oct 7
Chemistry Seminar: Process Chemistry: Complex Applications of Fundamental Concepts
Greg Beutner, Bristol Myers Squibb
3:15 p.m., RNS 310
MSCS Seminar: The Curious Case of 2s and 3s
Matthew Richey, Professor of Mathematics, St. Olaf College
As often happens, looking at a problem from one perspective leads to unexpected results when seeing it from another perspective. In this talk, we will explore a concept inspired by a classroom exercise in a chemistry class that reveals a “curious” phenomenon in number theory. Along the way, we’ll get to see how concepts such at the Boltzmann distribution, Markov chains and enumerative combinatorics intersect with each other.
3:40pm, RNS 204