AMS Student Chapter Seminar

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: Yandi Wu, Maya Banks

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 2021

September 29, John Cobb

Title: Rooms on a Sphere

Abstract: A classic combinatorial lemma becomes very simple to state and prove when on the surface of a sphere, leading to easy constructive proofs of some other well known theorems.

October 6, Karan Srivastava

Title: An 'almost impossible' puzzle and group theory

Abstract: You're given a chessboard with a randomly oriented coin on every square and a key hidden under one of them; player one knows where the key is and flips a single coin; player 2, using only the information of the new coin arrangement must determine where the key is. Is there a winning strategy? In this talk, we will explore this classic puzzle in a more generalized context, with n squares and d sided dice on every square. We'll see when the game is solvable and in doing so, see how the answer relies on group theory and the existence of certain groups.

October 13, John Yin

Title: TBA

Abstract: TBA

October 20, Varun Gudibanda

Title: TBA

Abstract: TBA

October 27, Andrew Krenz

Title: The 3-sphere via the Hopf fibration

Abstract: The Hopf fibration is a map from $S^3$ to $S^2$. The preimage (or fiber) of every point under this map is a copy of $S^1$. In this talk I will explain exactly how these circles “fit together” inside the 3-sphere. Along the way we’ll discover some other interesting facts in some hands-on demonstrations using paper and scissors. If there is time I hope to also relate our new understanding of $S^3$ to some other familiar models.

November 3, Asvin G

Title: Probabilistic methods in math

Abstract: I'll explain how you can provr that something has to be true because it's probably true in a couple of examples. One of the proofs is by Erdos on the "sum set problem" and it is a proof that "only an alien could have come up with" according to a friend.

November 10, Ivan Aidun

Title: Intersection Permutations

Abstract: During a boring meeting, your buddy slips you a Paris metro ticket with this cryptic diagram (see left).

What could it mean?  The only way to find out is to come to this Donut Talk!

December 1, Yuxi Han

Title: Homocidal Chaffeur Problem

Abstract: I will briefly introduce the canonical example of differential games, called the homicidal chauffeur problem and how to use PDE to run down pedestrians optimally.

December 8, Owen Goff

Title: The Mathematics of Cribbage

Abstract: Cribbage is a card game that I have played many times over the years, that involves, among other things, finding subsets of set of numbers that equal a specific value (in the game that value is 15). In this donut talk I will attempt to use the power of combinatorics to find the optimal strategy for this game, particularly to solve one problem -- is there a way you can guarantee yourself at least one extra point by adding an additional card to your set?