Zurich graduate colloquium

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Autumn Semester 2018

Date / Time

Speaker

Title

Location

25 September 2018
17:15-18:30

Davide Spriano
ETHZ

Event Details

Zurich Graduate Colloquium

Title	What is... a formal language?
Speaker, Affiliation	Davide Spriano, ETHZ
Date, Time	25 September 2018, 17:15-18:30
Location	KO2 F 150
Abstract	The theory of formal languages starts in the sixties with the work of Noam Chomsky. Chomsky conjectured that all human languages can be seen as particular instances of what were afterwards called "Chomsky grammars". Due to the rigorous nature of Chomsky grammars, several mathematicians took interest in his work and established fruitful analogies between the theory of formal languages and some aspects of group theory.,In this talk we will first provide a general introduction to formal languages and their relation to human language and to automata. Afterwards we will show that to every group it is possible to naturally associate a formal language. Finally, we will survey the equivalence between some properties of such a language and some algebraic property of the group.

What is... a formal language?read_more

KO2 F 150

2 October 2018
17:15-18:30

Mario Schulz
ETHZ

Event Details

Zurich Graduate Colloquium

Title	What is... a gemoetric flow?
Speaker, Affiliation	Mario Schulz, ETHZ
Date, Time	2 October 2018, 17:15-18:30
Location	KO2 F 150
Abstract	Geometric flows were originally an approach to solve geometric and topological problems. We introduce four different examples of geometric flows (the harmonic map heat flow, the mean curvature flow, the Ricci flow and the Yamabe flow) together with the corresponding geometric problem. Some animations will reveal differences and similarities between these flows. In the case of the Yamabe flow, we study the evolution of curvature which is given by a parabolic partial differential equation and derive basic estimates.

What is... a gemoetric flow?read_more

KO2 F 150

16 October 2018
17:15-18:30

Dr. Honglu Fan
ETHZ

Event Details

Zurich Graduate Colloquium

Title	What is... the number of lines on a cubic surface?
Speaker, Affiliation	Dr. Honglu Fan, ETHZ
Date, Time	16 October 2018, 17:15-18:30
Location	KO2 F 150
Abstract	In projective space of dimension 3, consider the zero set of a (generic) homogeneous cubic polynomial with 4 variables. In this talk, I will answer how many lines this set contains.

What is... the number of lines on a cubic surface?read_more

KO2 F 150

23 October 2018
17:15-18:30

Dr. Daniel Tubbenhauer
Universität Zürich

Event Details

Zurich Graduate Colloquium

Title	What is... (2)-representation theory?
Speaker, Affiliation	Dr. Daniel Tubbenhauer, Universität Zürich
Date, Time	23 October 2018, 17:15-18:30
Location	KO2 F 150
Abstract	This talk will be an introduction to the fields of representation and (2)-representation theory (the latter of which one can think as being a categorical lift of the former), as well as a survey of the state of the arts. I will focus to explain the main ideas and prototypical examples.

What is... (2)-representation theory?read_more

KO2 F 150

6 November 2018
17:15-18:30

Andreas Wieser
ETHZ

Event Details

Zurich Graduate Colloquium

Title	What is... the shape of a lattice?
Speaker, Affiliation	Andreas Wieser, ETHZ
Date, Time	6 November 2018, 17:15-18:30
Location	KO2 F 150
Abstract	In this talk we introduce the shape of a lattice (here a discrete subgroup of Euclidean space) which roughly captures the form of a fundamental parallelotope in it. We will particularly focus on primitive integral lattices and then address old and new questions surrounding such lattices and their shapes. The main (equidistribution) conjecture we discuss answers amongst other things the question whether or not the orientations of such lattices yield any information about their shapes and vice versa.

What is... the shape of a lattice?read_more

KO2 F 150

13 November 2018
17:15-18:30

Dr. Peter Feller
ETHZ

Event Details

Zurich Graduate Colloquium

Title	What is... the generalized Poincaré conjecture?
Speaker, Affiliation	Dr. Peter Feller, ETHZ
Date, Time	13 November 2018, 17:15-18:30
Location	KO2 F 150
Abstract	The Poincare Conjecture asserts that, if a 3-manifold appears to be the 3-sphere from the point of view of simple algebraic invariants, then it is the 3-sphere. We explain the statement and its generalizations to arbitrary dimensions, known as the Generalized Poincare Conjecture, in detail. We then turn to the resolution of the Poincare Conjecture for large dimensions by Smale, which surprisingly turns out to be much simpler than the 3-dimensional case. We will explain the fundamental difference between high and low-dimension that forms the core of Smale's argument in completely elementary terms and provide a very rough sketch of the proof.

What is... the generalized Poincaré conjecture?read_more

KO2 F 150

20 November 2018
17:15-18:30

Violetta Weger
Universität Zürich

Event Details

Zurich Graduate Colloquium

Title	What is... the McEliece system?
Speaker, Affiliation	Violetta Weger, Universität Zürich
Date, Time	20 November 2018, 17:15-18:30
Location	KO2 F 150
Abstract	In 1978 Robert J. McEliece came up with the first code-based cryptosystem. It is based on error-correcting codes and many variants have been proposed until today. Since the underlying problem of decoding a random linear code is an NP-hard problem, this system is considered to be quantum secure, i.e. it would resist attacks from a quantum computer. In this talk we will explain the McEliece cryptosystem, its advantages and the disadvantages we try to overcome.

What is... the McEliece system?read_more

KO2 F 150

4 December 2018
17:15-18:30

Benedetta Cavalli
Universität Zürich

Event Details

Zurich Graduate Colloquium

Title	What is... a branching process?
Speaker, Affiliation	Benedetta Cavalli, Universität Zürich
Date, Time	4 December 2018, 17:15-18:30
Location	KO2 F 150
Abstract	During the Victorian age, several aristocratic english families started to fear that their family names could become extinct. Was there something real behind that concern or was it just unfounded paranoia? In 1873 Sir Francis Galton asked the following question in an issue of the Educational Times: "How many male children (on average) must each generation of a family have in order for the family name to continue in perpetuity? Soon after, Reverend Henry William Watson replied with a solution and in 1874 the two wrote a joint paper entitled "On the probability of extinction of families". This marks the beginning of the study of what are today called branching processes: powerful probabilistic tools for exploiting branching structures naturally arising not only in population dynamics but also in many other fields. The aim of this lecture is to give an introduction to the topic and, of course, a precise answer to Galton's question.

What is... a branching process?read_more

KO2 F 150

18 December 2018
17:15-18:30

Thomas Gemunden
ETHZ

Event Details

Zurich Graduate Colloquium

Title	What is... a vertex operator algebra?
Speaker, Affiliation	Thomas Gemunden, ETHZ
Date, Time	18 December 2018, 17:15-18:30
Location	KO2 F 150

What is... a vertex operator algebra? (CANCELLED)

KO2 F 150

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