Albion College
Mathematics and Computer Science
COLLOQUIUM
Finding cycles in graphs
Michael Santana

Assistant Professor of Mathematics

Mathematics

Grand Valley State University

In chess, a "knight" is a piece that has the ability to move two spaces vertically (or horizontally) and one space horizontally (or vertically). This unusual movement led to questioning whether or not it was possible for a knight to travel the entire board and end where it started, visiting all other spaces exactly once. This question turns out to be one of the earliest cases of the Hamiltonian cycle problem in graph theory (a notoriously difficult problem that has inspired many other cycle structure problems). In this talk, we'll see explore some of these cycle structure problems (some of which are very recent!), and see how doing research in mathematics can be like playing Jenga!
3:30 PM
All are welcome!
Palenske 227
March 29, 2018