Speaker: Dr. Trefor Bazett
Title: Untangling the Mathematics of Knots
Abstract: Suppose you and I each tie a knot in a piece of the rope. Could you wiggle your knot with your fingers until it looked like mine without any cutting or retying the knots? If the knots were really tangled up, it might be very hard to know whether they were really the same knot or whether they were completely different knots! In this session we are going explore Knot Theory, which uses mathematical techniques that let you perform calculations on knots and ultimately decide that two knots are different.
Bio: Trefor is a math prof at UVic who is passionate about sharing math ideas with his students. His favourite type of math is called Topology which studies shapes the way Geometry does, but everything is all squishy and malleable as if it was made out of Play-Doh. Cool! He also loves making math videos for YouTube.
Speaker: Dr. Natasha Morrison
Title: The Four Colour Theorem
Abstract: How many colours do you need to be able to colour a map in such a way that no two countries sharing a border receive the same colour? In this session, we will see how this problem is related to a more general question about colouring nodes of networks, and explore strategies for determining the minimum number of colours required.
Bio: Natasha Morrison joined the Department of Mathematics at UVic in 2020. Before this, she spent time as a post doctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge and at Instituto Nacional de Matemática Pura e Aplicada in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. She obtained her PhD from the University of Oxford. Natasha has a wide range of research interests, mainly in the areas of extremal and probabilistic combinatorics. Broadly speaking, these concern understanding the structure and properties of large scale networks, and how processes, such as the spread of disease or influence, behave in various settings.
Speaker: Dr. Jane Butterfield
Title: Constructive Constructions and Historical Triangles
Abstract: These days, geometry is often people’s first introduction to proofs, but its roots are far more practical. In this session we’ll explore three different paradigms of geometrical constructions, starting from the Śulbasūtras of Ancient India, moving through Euclid’s axioms, and exploring a very practical problem from medieval Baghdad with an elegantly mathematical solution.
Bio: Jane Butterfield studies graph theory and math education. She has successfully talked about graph theory and combinatorics to many different types of audiences and age ranges. Her PhD research was in extremal graph theory, but she also enjoys topological graph theory, Ramsey games, and pursuit games on graphs. While a graduate student at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, she received three teaching awards, including the Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. She spent two years teaching calculus to talented high school students for the Math Center for Educational Programs at the University of Minnesota, and is now an Associate Teaching Professor at the University of Victoria. At UVic, she manages the Math & Stats Assistance Centre — because of the US & Canadian spelling differences, this means she has worked for both a Center and a Centre!
Speaker: Shannon Ogden
Title: A Mathematician’s Guide to World Domination
Abstract: How can one defend a vast empire with a minimal number of soldiers? This was the dilemma faced by emperor Constantine during the decline of the Roman Empire. In this session, we will attempt to avert the fall of the Roman Empire by improving upon Constantine’s defensive strategy. By representing the cities and major roads of the empire as the vertices and edges of a graph, we will model various troop deployment strategies in order to determine the minimum number of soldiers required to successfully defend the Roman Empire.
Bio: Shannon Ogden (she/her) is a PhD student at UVic, where she studies graph theory under the supervision of Dr. Natasha Morrison. As the Outreach Program Coordinator for UVic’s student chapter of the Association for Women in Mathematics, Shannon is always looking for new ways to inspire young mathematicians. She loves playing the piano (never mind how poorly) and the unequaled satisfaction of a well-organized bookcase brimming with gorgeous editions of classic novels. When not buried in math papers, Shannon can often be found rock climbing, hiking, or simply looking for the perfect tree under which to read.
Speaker: Dr. Chris Eagle
Title: Hercules and the Hydra: How to Count Past Infinity.
Abstract: When I tell my son “I love you infinity” he tells me “I love you infinity plus one!”. Does that make any sense? In this session, we will see how to make mathematical sense out of “infinity plus one”, “infinity plus infinity”, and more. As an illustration of how counting past infinity can be useful, even in solving problems about finite objects, we will play a game involving a battle between the hero Hercules and the monstrous Hydra.
Bio: Chris Eagle’s background is in both mathematics and philosophy, a combination which lead to his fascination with mathematical logic. He loves sharing wonderful and strange facts about the foundations of mathematics, especially regarding mathematical problems that are provably unsolvable, with anyone who will listen. He is particularly interested in involving undergraduate students in mathematics research.