Sponsored by the Rutgers University Department of Mathematics and the
Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (DIMACS)
Title: Experimenting with permutations: The tale of two algorithms
Speaker: Henning Ulfarsson, Reykjavik University
Date: Thursday, March 26, 2015 5:00pm
Location: Hill Center, Room 705, Rutgers University, Busch Campus, Piscataway, NJ
Abstract:
Permutations are the perfect mathematical object to perform computer experiments on: They are easily represented as a string (1324 is the permutation 1->1, 2->3, 3->2, 4->4) and we have an abundance of interesting sets of permutations to investigate. To name a few: smooth, Baxter, West-2-stack- sortable and simsun permutations. In this talk we will look at two algorithms, BiSC and Struct, designed to make conjectures for the human mathematician to verify. BiSC discovers the patterns avoided by a set of permutations. Struct tries to figure out enough structure in the set to find an equation satisfied by the generating function enumerating the set.
Parts of the talk are joint work with Michael Albert (Otago), Christian Bean (Reykjavik), Anders Claesson (Strathclyde) and Bjarki Gudmundsson (Reykjavik).