Tropicalize ALL The Things!

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC | Ralph Morrison, PhD from Williams College will be joining us to talk about Tropical Mathematics.

Tropical mathematics redefines the rules of arithmetic by replacing "plus" with "take a min", and "times" with "plus" (so 2 plus 3 is now 2, and 2 times 3 is now 5). This seemingly bizarre change leads to all sorts of useful and beautiful mathematics! After seeing how a tropical version of linear algebra helps us solve optimization and scheduling problems, we'll start exploring tropical geometry, which studies the shapes defined by min-plus polynomials. This talk will highlight recent theorems proved by undergraduates, as well open questions for future research.