This week, on a very special Math/Stats Colloquium, we are proud to present John de Pillis (UC Riverside) on “Linear Algebra as a Natural Language for Special Relativity and Its Paradoxes”.  Using basic linear algebra and original animations, while assuming very little knowledge of physics, we present a novel derivation of the Lorentz transformation.  Through the geometry of Minkowski diagrams, we analyze properties and paradoxes of special relativity, such as the Twin Paradox, in which one twin leaves Earth in a fast rocket ship and returns to Earth after 50 years having aged only 30 years, and the Bug-Rivet Paradox, in which relativity can cause time reversal in the sense that effect occurs before cause.

Background: One course in linear algebra.

• Date: Fri Oct 14
• Time: 2:30-3:20pm
• Room: MH320
• Snacks: 2:00pm in MH331B

For more information, click here to see the full flyer, suitable for printing and posting.

Hope to see you there!

Upcoming events:

• Fri Oct 21: Wesley Maciejewski, SJSU
  “Mathematical Foresight: Thinking in the Future to Work in the Present”
• Fri Oct 28: Yan Zhang, SJSU
  “Voting Theory ‘Theorems’ and Misapplied Math”

The Math/Stats Colloquium is pleased to present our second new faculty member talk of the semester, Daniel Brinkman on “The Mathematics of (Simple) Object Recognition”.  There are many different techniques for recognizing simple objects with various different mathematical underpinnings.  We begin by discussing the basic categories of mathematical object recognition and then discuss one specific example: Shape Histograms.  Through this lens we discuss some common challenges in the field and give some easy numerical results.

Background: Most of the talk should be accessible to students with Calculus II; some familiarity with discrete math will also be useful.

• Date: Fri Oct 07
• Time: 2:30-3:20pm
• Room: MH320
• Snacks: 2:00pm in MH331B

For more information, click here to see the full flyer, suitable for printing and posting.

Hope to see you there!

Upcoming events:

• Fri Oct 14: John de Pillis, UC Riverside
  “Linear Algebra as a Natural Language for Special Relativity and Its Paradoxes”
• Fri Oct 21: Wesley Maciejewski, SJSU
  “Mathematical Foresight: Thinking in the Future to Work in the Present”

The Math/Stats Colloquium returns this week with SJSU’s new assistant professor Cristina Tortora on “Recent developments in model-based clustering”.  Cluster analysis aims to identify homogeneous groups of units, called clusters, within data.  Model-based clustering methods consider the overall population as a mixture of groups and each component of this mixture is modeled through its conditional probability distribution.  The choice of this distribution, which affects clustering results and algorithm performance, has been one of the central issues in the recent literature.  Recently the generalized hyperbolic distribution and extensions have been used for cluster analysis because they are very flexible and are able to identify non-elliptical clusters.  This talk will show some of the most used models and some recently proposed models for model-based clustering.

Background: A first course in statistics.

• Date: Fri Sep 30
• Time: 2:30-3:20pm
• Room: MH320
• Snacks: 2:00pm in MH331B

For more information, click here to see the full flyer, suitable for printing and posting.

Hope to see you there!

Upcoming events:

• Fri Oct 07: Daniel Brinkman, SJSU
  “The Mathematics of (Simple) Object Recognition”
• Fri Oct 14: John de Pillis, UC Riverside
  “Linear Algebra as a Natural Language for Special Relativity and Its Paradoxes”

The Math/Stats Colloquium continues this week with Catherine Pfaff (UCSB) on “Outer Space and the Outer Automorphism Group of the Free Group.”  A common strategy for studying a group is to study some object that it acts on and how it acts on this object, and the speaker’s favorite group is the outer automorphism group of the free group.  This talk will introduce this group and the object, Culler-Vogtmann Outer Space, that it acts on.

Background: One course in abstract algebra.

• Date: Fri Sep 16
• Time: 2:30-3:20pm
• Room: MH320
• Snacks: 2:00pm in MH331B

For more information, click here to see the full flyer, suitable for printing and posting.

Hope to see you there!

Upcoming events:

• Fri Sep 23: Cristina Tortora, SJSU
  “Recent developments in model-based clustering”
• Fri Oct 07: Daniel Brinkman, SJSU
  TBA

We are thrilled to announce that our first colloquium speaker will be Marianna Dizik (Google) on “@Google: Art and SCIENCE of Sales”.  As you may know, Google was one of the first companies to recognize the value of predictive modeling and machine learning in sales and marketing.  This talk will discuss challenges faced by Google and the methodologies, tools/algorithms, and solutions Google has developed in response.

Background: A first course in statistics.

• Date: Fri Sep 09
• Time: 2:30-3:20pm
• Room: MH320
• Snacks: 2:00pm in MH331B

For more information, click here to see the full flyer, suitable for printing and posting.

Hope to see you there!

Upcoming events:

• Fri Sep 16: Catherine Pfaff, UC Santa Barbara
  “Outer Space and the Outer Automorphism Group of the Free Group”
• Fri Sep 23: Cristina Tortora, SJSU
  TBA