Past Event! Note: this event has already taken place.
Combinatorics and Optimization Seminar
March 15, 2012 at 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM
| Location: | 4369 HP Herzberg Laboratories |
| Cost: | Free |
Speaker: Prof. Aiden Bruen
Title: Euler’s problem, Bruck’s embedding theorem, quantum information
theory and a theorem of Gallucci.
Abstract: It was Euler who first posed the “problem of the 36 officers”
,solved by Tarry in 1901. Since then the question of determining the
maximum number of mutually orthogonal latin squares [mols] of a given
order n has been central . Interest in the problem has recently
increased because of a putative connection with a basic question in
quantum information theory. R.H.Bruck showed that a “large “ set of
mols can be embedded in a complete set. In this lecture we provide a
construction for a “fairly large” but unimbeddable system of mols. This
is the largest known such system. The main tool in the construction is
a classical result in line geometry known as Gallucci’s theorem but
which goes back to Dandelin circa 1826.
Short Biography: Aiden A Bruen was born in Galway, Ireland. He read
mathematics for his B.Sc and M.Sc at University College, Dublin. He
took his PhD in incidence geometry at the University of Toronto under
the supervision of F.A.Sherk. At Toronto he also worked with Professors
Coxeter,Ellers and Lehman. Prior to his arrival at Calgary he was on
staff at Los Alamos. Currently he is an Adjunct Professor in the ECE
department. He works in finite geometries, codes, cryptography and other
topics in discrete mathematics