Schedule

January 31: Soft Open

This is our first Math Graduate Student Colloquium. We will be hanging out, eating snacks, and getting back into the swing of semester life. Please join us and get a feel of what to expect in this semester's colloquium. If you want to bring any snacks, feel free to show off any baking, cooking, or generosity skills.

February 14: Liam Jemison (UW-Milwaukee)

Title: Finite Elements for Mathematicians

Abstract: We will discuss the finite element method, a powerful approach for numerically solving differential equations. We will introduce the weak formulation of a differential equation from the functional analysis viewpoint with a simple application of the galerkin method, and then discuss generalizations, some error estimates, and software implementations.

February 28: Matt McClinton (UW-Milwaukee)

Title: Fractal Geometry and Non-Integer Dimensions

Abstract: 

March 14: Gavin Sayrs and Ariel Quinn (UW-Milwaukee)

Title: Stirling Permutations to Increasing Plane Trees and Back

Abstract: A Stirling permutation is a permutation on the multiset {1,1, 2, 2, 3, 3, ... ,n, n} such that any numbers appearing between repeated values of i must be greater than i.  Recall that a plane tree is a tree drawn on a plane with no edges crossing.  An increasing plane tree is a plane tree where each vertex is labeled from 1 to n, with labels increasing away from the root. Our main result establishes a bijection from Stirling permutations to its respective increasing plain tree.

March 28: Jackson Thurmond (UW-Milwaukee)

Title: Generalized Linear Model approach to the Prediction of the outcome of Mixed Martial Arts Fights

Abstract: Mixed martial arts is a complex combat sport that encompasses striking, grappling and submissions. In a sport where fights can be won by finishing a fight or go to decision there is a multitude of factors that can influence the outcome of a fight. In an effort to determine which factors are statistically significant to a fight a generalized linear model approach was selected. Since mixed martial arts is a sport in which two competitors fight, and one is declared a winner, the result of a fight can be thought of a binary classification problem.

April 11: Daniel Quigley (UW-Milwaukee)

Title: n-dimensional Page Geometry

Abstract: From G.H. Hardy's A Mathematician’s Apology (1940): "I have never done anything 'useful'. No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the world." In arranging a page for writing, two specific geometric designs (called 'canons')---Honnecourt canon and van de Graaf canon---guarantee that the textblock is proportional to the page size. Page design, however, is necessarily confined to the plane. In the spirit of G.H. Hardy's apology, we show that there exists (n-1) constraint equations that govern the page proportions in which the textblock is always proportional to the page size for an n-dimensional page. For the usual n=2 case, we present a user-interface for calculating appropriate page and textblock proportions according to various canons and arbitrary page scales, which exports the proportions to a LaTeX-compatible geometry.

April 18: Noah Mitchell, Levi Montee, and Harrison Piehowski (UW-Milwaukee)

Title: The RSA Algorithm: Demonstration and Proofs

Abstract: In this talk, we will explore the RSA algorithm, one of the most widely used cryptographic systems. Starting with a brief history of its development by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman in the late 1970s, we will then demonstrate RSA's effectiveness through practical examples and mathematical proofs. 

Our presentation will include an interactive role-play, where two presenters use RSA to securely send messages, while a third attempts to decrypt them without the private key, showcasing RSA’s robustness in real-world scenarios. 

April 25: Levi Montee (UW-Milwaukee)

Title: Stolarsky Arrays: Covering the Natural Numbers with Fibonacci-like Sequences

Abstract: