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The AMS Student Chapter Seminar is an informal, graduate student-run seminar on a wide range of mathematical topics. Pastries (usually donuts) will be provided.
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, 3:00 PM – 3:30 PM
* '''When:''' Thursdays 4:00-4:30pm
* '''Where:''' Van Vleck, 9th floor lounge
* '''Where:''' Van Vleck, 9th floor lounge (unless otherwise announced)
* '''Organizers:''' Laura Cladek, Ryan Julian, Xianghong Chen, Daniel Hast
* '''Organizers:''' Ivan Aidun, Alex Bonat, Kaiyi Huang, Ethan Schondorf


Everyone is welcome to give a talk. To sign up, please contact the organizers with a title and abstract. Talks are 30 minutes long and should avoid assuming significant mathematical background beyond first-year graduate courses.
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.


==Spring 2015==
The schedule of talks from past semesters can be found [[AMS Student Chapter Seminar, previous semesters|here]].


===January 28, Moisés Herradón===
== Spring 2025 ==
<center>
{| cellspacing="5" cellpadding="14" border="0" style="color:black; font-size:120%"
! align="center" width="200" bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |'''Date'''
! align="center" width="200" bgcolor="#A6B658" |'''Speaker'''
! align="center" width="300" bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |'''Title'''
! align="center" width="400" bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |'''Abstract'''
|-
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |January 30
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |Caroline Nunn
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |Watch Caroline eat a donut: an introduction to Morse theory
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |Morse theory has been described as "one of the deepest applications of differential geometry to topology." However, the concepts involved in Morse theory are so simple that you can learn them just by watching me eat a donut (and subsequently watching me give a 20 minute talk explaining Morse theory.) No background is needed beyond calc 3 and a passing familiarity with donuts.
|-
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |February 6
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |Inbo Gottlieb-Fenves
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |Numbers Modulo One
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |For millions of years, people have wondered what subsets of the circle are invariant under multiplication by squares. In this talk, I will tell you the answer.
|-
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |February 13
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |CANCELLED
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |NONE
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |NONE
|-
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |February 20
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |Chiara Travesset
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |TBA
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |TBA
|-
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |February 27
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |Awildo Gutierrez
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |TBA
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |TBA
|-
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |March 6
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |TBA
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |TBA
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |TBA
|-
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |March 13
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |TBA
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |TBA
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |TBA
|-
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |March 19
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |TBA
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |Special Visit Day Talks!
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |TBA
|-
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |March 20
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |CANCELLED
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |NONE
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |NONE
|-
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |March 27
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |SPRING BREAK
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |NONE
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |NONE
|-
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |April 3
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |Emma Hayes
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |TBA
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |TBA
|-
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |April 10
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |TBA
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |TBA
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |TBA
|-
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |April 17
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |TBA
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |TBA
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |TBA
|-
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |April 24
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |TBA
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |TBA
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |TBA
|-
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |May 1
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |TBA
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |TBA
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |TBA
|}
</center>


Title: Winning games and taking names


Abstract: So let’s say we’re already amazing at playing one game (any game!) at a time and we now we need to play several games at once, to keep it challenging. We will see that doing this results in us being able to define an addition on the collection of all games, and that it actually turns this collection into a Group. I will talk about some of the wonders that lie within the group. Maybe lions? Maybe a field containing both the real numbers and the ordinals? For sure it has to be one of these two!
== Fall 2024 ==
<center>
{| cellspacing="5" cellpadding="14" border="0" style="color:black; font-size:120%"
! align="center" width="200" bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |'''Date'''
! align="center" width="200" bgcolor="#A6B658" |'''Speaker'''
! align="center" width="300" bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |'''Title'''
! align="center" width="400" bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |'''Abstract'''
|-
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |September 12
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |Ari Davidovsky
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |95% of people can't solve this!
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" | [[File:Image.png|360px]]


===February 11, Becky Eastham===
We will attempt to answer this question and along the way explore how algebra and geometry work together to solve problems in number theory.
|-
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |September 19
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |CANCELLED
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |NONE
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |NONE
|-
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |September 26
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |Mateo Morales
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |Officially petitioning the department to acquire a ping pong table.
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |Ever want to prove something is a free group of rank 2? Me too. One way to do this is to use a ping pong argument of how a group generated by two elements acts on a set.
I will illustrate the ping pong argument using an example of matrices, explain how it works, and explain why, kinda.


Title: A generalization of van der Waerden numbers: (a, b) triples and (a_1, a_2, ..., a_n) (n + 1)-tuples
Very approachable if you know what a group is but does require tons of ping pong experience.
 
|-
Abstract: Van der Waerden defined w(k; r) to be the least positive integer such that for every r-coloring of the integers from 1 to w(k; r), there is a monochromatic arithmetic progression of length k.  He proved that w(k; r) exists for all positive k, r.  I will discuss the case where r = 2.  These numbers are notoriously hard to calculate: the first 6 of these are 1, 3, 9, 35, 178, and 1132, but no others are known.  I will discuss properties of a generalization of these numbers, (a_1, a_2, ..., a_n) (n + 1)-tuples, which are sets of the form {d, a_1x + d, a_2x + 2d, ..., a_nx + nd}, for d, x positive natural numbers.
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |October 3
 
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |Karthik Ravishankar
===February 18, Solly Parenti===
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |Incompleteness for the working mathematician
 
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |In this talk we'll take a look at Gödels famous incompleteness theorems and look at some of its immediate as well as interesting consequences. No background in logic is necessary!
Title: Chebyshev's Bias
|-
 
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |October 10
Abstract: Euclid told us that there are infinitely many primes.  Dirichlet answered the question of how primes are distributed among residue classes.  This talk addresses the question of "Ya, but really, how are the primes distributed among residue classes?" Chebyshev noted in 1853 that there seems to be more primes congruent to 3 mod 4 than their are primes congruent to 1 mod 4.  It turns out, he was right, wrong, and everything in between. No analytic number theory is presumed for this talk, as none is known by the speaker.
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |Elizabeth Hankins
 
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |Mathematical Origami and Flat-Foldability
===February 25, David Bruce===
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |If you've ever unfolded a piece of origami, you might have noticed complicated symmetries in the pattern of creases left behind. What patterns of lines can and cannot be folded into origami? And why is it sometimes hard to determine?
 
|-
Title: Mean, Median, and Mode - Well Actually Just Median
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |October 17
 
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |CANCELLED
Abstract: Given a finite set of numbers there are many different ways to measure the center of the set. Three of the more common measures, familiar to any middle school students, are: mean, median, mode. This talk will focus on the concept of the median, and why in many ways it's sweet. In particular, we will explore how we can extend the notion of a median to higher dimensions, and apply it to create more robust statistics. It will be awesome, and there will be donuts.
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |NONE
 
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |NONE
===March 4, Jing Hao===
|-
 
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |October 24
Title: Error Correction Codes
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |CANCELLED
 
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |NONE
Abstract: In the modern world, many communication channels are subject to noise, and thus errors happen. To help the codes auto-correct themselves, more bits are added to the codes to make them more different from each other and therefore easier to tell apart. The major object we study is linear codes. They have nice algebraic structure embedded, and we can apply well-known algebraic results to construct 'nice' codes. This talk will touch on the basics of coding theory, and introduce some famous codes in the coding world, including several prize problems yet to be solved!
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |NONE
 
|-
===March 10 (Tuesday), Nathan Clement===
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |October 31
 
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |Jacob Wood
''Note: This week's seminar will be on Tuesday at 3:30 instead of the usual time.''
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |What is the length of a <s>potato</s> pumpkin?
 
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |How many is a jack-o-lantern? What is the length of a pumpkin? These questions sound like nonsense, but they have perfectly reasonable interpretations with perfectly reasonable answers. On our journey through the haunted house with two rooms, we will encounter some scary characters like differential topology and measure theory. Do not fear; little to no experience in either subject is required.
Title: Two Solutions, not too Technical, to a Problem to which the Answer is Two
|-
 
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |November 7
Abstract: A classical problem in Algebraic Geometry is this: Given four pairwise skew lines, how many other lines intersect all of them. I will present some (two) solutions to this problem. One is more classical and ad hoc and the other introduces the Grassmannian variety/manifold and a little intersection theory.
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |CANCELLED: DISTINGUISHED LECTURE
 
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |NONE
===April 8, James Waddington===
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |NONE
 
|-
Title: TBA
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |November 14
 
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |Sapir Ben-Shahar
Abstract: TBA
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |Hexaflexagons
 
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |Come along for some hexaflexafun and discover the mysterious properties of hexaflexagons, the bestagons! Learn how to make and navigate through the folds of your very own paper hexaflexagon. No prior knowledge of hexagons (or hexaflexagons) is assumed.
==Fall 2014==
|-
 
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |November 21
===September 25, Vladimir Sotirov===
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |Andrew Krenz
 
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |All concepts are database queries
Title: [[Media:Compact-openTalk.pdf|The compact open topology: what is it really?]]
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |A celebrated result of applied category theory states that the category of small categories is equivalent to the category of database schemas. Therefore, every theorem about small categories can be interpreted as a theorem about databases.  Maybe you've heard someone repeat Mac Lane's famous slogan "all concepts are Kan extensions."  In this talk, I'll give a high-level overview of/introduction to categorical database theory (developed by David Spivak) wherein Kan extensions play the role of regular every day database queries.  No familiarity with categories or databases will be assumed.
 
|-
Abstract:  The compact-open topology on the space C(X,Y) of continuous functions from X to Y is mysteriously generated by declaring that for each compact subset K of X and each open subset V of Y, the continous functions f: X->Y conducting K inside V constitute an open set. In this talk, I will explain the universal property that uniquely determines the compact-open topology, and sketch a pretty constellation of little-known but elementary facts from domain theory that dispell the mystery of the compact-open topology's definition.
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |November 28
 
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |THANKSGIVING
===October 8, David Bruce===
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |NONE
 
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |NONE
Title: Hex on the Beach
|-
 
| bgcolor="#D0D0D0" |December 5
Abstract: The game of Hex is a two player game played on a hexagonal grid attributed in part to John Nash. (This is the game he is playing in /A Beautiful Mind./) Despite being relatively easy to pick up, and pretty hard to master, this game has surprising connections to some interesting mathematics. This talk will introduce the game of Hex, and then explore some of these connections. *As it is a lot more fun once you've actually played Hex feel free to join me at 3:00pm on the 9th floor to actually play a few games of Hex!*
| bgcolor="#A6B658" |Ivan Aidun
 
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |Impromptu talk
===October 22, Eva Elduque===
| bgcolor="#BCD2EE" |Caroline is sick today, so Ivan will give an impromptu talk about something.
 
|}
Title: The fold and one cut problem
</center>
 
Abstract: What shapes can we get by folding flat a piece of paper and making (only) one complete straight cut? The answer is surprising: We can cut out any shape drawn with straight line segments. In the talk, we will discuss the two methods of approaching this problem, focusing on the straight skeleton method, the most intuitive of the two.
 
===November 5, Megan Maguire===
 
Title: Train tracks on surfaces
 
Abstract: What is a train track, mathematically speaking? Are they interesting? Why are they interesting? Come find out!
 
===November 19, Adrian Tovar-Lopez===
 
Title:  Hodgkin and Huxley equations of a single neuron
 
===December 3, Zachary Charles===
 
Abstract: An addition chain is a sequence of numbers starting at one, such that every number is the sum of two previous numbers. What is the shortest chain ending at a number n? While this is already difficult, we will talk about how addition chains answer life's difficult questions, including: How do we compute 2^4? What can the Ancient Egyptians teach us about elliptic curve cryptography? What about subtraction?

Latest revision as of 03:08, 7 February 2025

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: Thursdays 4:00-4:30pm
  • Where: Van Vleck, 9th floor lounge (unless otherwise announced)
  • Organizers: Ivan Aidun, Alex Bonat, Kaiyi Huang, Ethan Schondorf

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.

Spring 2025

Date Speaker Title Abstract
January 30 Caroline Nunn Watch Caroline eat a donut: an introduction to Morse theory Morse theory has been described as "one of the deepest applications of differential geometry to topology." However, the concepts involved in Morse theory are so simple that you can learn them just by watching me eat a donut (and subsequently watching me give a 20 minute talk explaining Morse theory.) No background is needed beyond calc 3 and a passing familiarity with donuts.
February 6 Inbo Gottlieb-Fenves Numbers Modulo One For millions of years, people have wondered what subsets of the circle are invariant under multiplication by squares. In this talk, I will tell you the answer.
February 13 CANCELLED NONE NONE
February 20 Chiara Travesset TBA TBA
February 27 Awildo Gutierrez TBA TBA
March 6 TBA TBA TBA
March 13 TBA TBA TBA
March 19 TBA Special Visit Day Talks! TBA
March 20 CANCELLED NONE NONE
March 27 SPRING BREAK NONE NONE
April 3 Emma Hayes TBA TBA
April 10 TBA TBA TBA
April 17 TBA TBA TBA
April 24 TBA TBA TBA
May 1 TBA TBA TBA


Fall 2024

Date Speaker Title Abstract
September 12 Ari Davidovsky 95% of people can't solve this! Image.png

We will attempt to answer this question and along the way explore how algebra and geometry work together to solve problems in number theory.

September 19 CANCELLED NONE NONE
September 26 Mateo Morales Officially petitioning the department to acquire a ping pong table. Ever want to prove something is a free group of rank 2? Me too. One way to do this is to use a ping pong argument of how a group generated by two elements acts on a set.

I will illustrate the ping pong argument using an example of matrices, explain how it works, and explain why, kinda.

Very approachable if you know what a group is but does require tons of ping pong experience.

October 3 Karthik Ravishankar Incompleteness for the working mathematician In this talk we'll take a look at Gödels famous incompleteness theorems and look at some of its immediate as well as interesting consequences. No background in logic is necessary!
October 10 Elizabeth Hankins Mathematical Origami and Flat-Foldability If you've ever unfolded a piece of origami, you might have noticed complicated symmetries in the pattern of creases left behind. What patterns of lines can and cannot be folded into origami? And why is it sometimes hard to determine?
October 17 CANCELLED NONE NONE
October 24 CANCELLED NONE NONE
October 31 Jacob Wood What is the length of a potato pumpkin? How many is a jack-o-lantern? What is the length of a pumpkin? These questions sound like nonsense, but they have perfectly reasonable interpretations with perfectly reasonable answers. On our journey through the haunted house with two rooms, we will encounter some scary characters like differential topology and measure theory. Do not fear; little to no experience in either subject is required.
November 7 CANCELLED: DISTINGUISHED LECTURE NONE NONE
November 14 Sapir Ben-Shahar Hexaflexagons Come along for some hexaflexafun and discover the mysterious properties of hexaflexagons, the bestagons! Learn how to make and navigate through the folds of your very own paper hexaflexagon. No prior knowledge of hexagons (or hexaflexagons) is assumed.
November 21 Andrew Krenz All concepts are database queries A celebrated result of applied category theory states that the category of small categories is equivalent to the category of database schemas. Therefore, every theorem about small categories can be interpreted as a theorem about databases.  Maybe you've heard someone repeat Mac Lane's famous slogan "all concepts are Kan extensions."  In this talk, I'll give a high-level overview of/introduction to categorical database theory (developed by David Spivak) wherein Kan extensions play the role of regular every day database queries.  No familiarity with categories or databases will be assumed.
November 28 THANKSGIVING NONE NONE
December 5 Ivan Aidun Impromptu talk Caroline is sick today, so Ivan will give an impromptu talk about something.
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