Applied Mathematics Colloquium by Stephanie van Willigenburg: Coloring Trees

Speaker: Stephanie Van Willigenburg, University of British Columbia

Title: Coloring Trees

Abstract: Trees are used to model a myriad of concepts from data storage 
to sentence structure. One particular example is to model hydrocarbons, 
such as methane and propane, for which a formula to calculate the exact 
number is still not known. One potential way to calculate this number is 
to use a generalization of the chromatic polynomial, which itself was 
invented in 1912 by Birkhoff when he was trying to solve the famous four 
color map problem. This generalization is called the chromatic 
symmetric function, and in this talk we will be introduced to it, and, 
amongst other things, discover which trees it can distinguish to help us 
count hydrocarbons.

This talk needs no prior knowledge of any of the above, and is suitable 
for undergraduates.

 

Applied Mathematics Colloquia