Albion College
Mathematics and Computer Science
COLLOQUIUM
How to Become An Extremal Graph Theorist
Lauren Keough

Assistant Professor

Mathematics

Grand Valley State University

Graph theory is the study of relationships that come in pairs. There are many such relationships occurring naturally, think of matching medical students to residencies, friendship on social networks, or even pairing animals with the regions in which they live. From these relationships we can draw graphs. For example, for each person on a social network draw a dot, and draw a line segment between two dots if the people are "friends". Graph theory is, broadly, the study of these pictures with these dot lines. So, what could extremal graph theory be? Unfortunately extremal graph theory is not doing graph theory while snowboarding. Think of "extremal" more like you may have in Calculus 1 — perhaps you remember finding "local and absolute extrema." By the end of the talk you'll be able to ask and answer extremal questions and perhaps even know a new card trick.
3:30 PM
All are welcome!
Palenske 227
September 21, 2017