Seminar

Hausdorff measures: the ultimate collection of measuring cups

Hausdorff measure $\mathcal{H}^\alpha (E)$ of a set $E$ is a nonnegative number that measures its ``$\alpha$-dimensional'' size. If $E$ is a curve, $\mathcal{H}^1 (E)$ is the \textbf{length} of the curve, as we know it from Calc 2. But $\mathcal{H}^2 (E) = 0$, meaning our 2-dimensional goggles will not notice this set. Hausdorff measure applies to any arbitrary set $E$ and more surprisingly, $\alpha$ does not have to be an integer. Thus you may measure $\sqrt{2}$-, $\frac{2}{3}$-, or even $\pi$-dimensional size of a set.

A note on the Collatz Conjecture

Take your favorite positive integer. If it's even, divide it by 2. If it's odd, multiply by 3 and add 1. Continue these steps with the new number you get and repeat forever. The Collatz conjecture claims that any positive integer you start with, you will eventually end up at 1. Recently, Terence Tao proved some strong partial results on this conjecture. In light of this, I will remark on some (not new) theorems involving this infamous conjecture.

Toric Ideals of Graphs

Abstract:

Toric ideals are a class of binomial ideals with many applications including to integer programming and algebraic statistics. One can associate a toric ideal to a finite simple graph by taking the kernel of the monomial map which sends the edges of the graph to the product of their endpoints. In this talk I will discuss some algebraic properties of toric ideals of graphs, focusing particularly on the Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity which is an invariant which measures the complexity of the relations among the generators of the ideal.