S24 SASMS 2
July 3, 2024
6:30 PM–9:00 PM
MC 4021
The Wedderburn-Artin Theorem: Classifying Semisimple Rings by Sara Nayar
(Abstract was a picture but the goal of the talk was to justify and then present the theorem yerrrr)
Time to Event: An Introduction to Survival Analysis by Alina Hu
Survival analysis is a powerful statistical method used to analyze and interpret time-to-event data, applicable across diverse fields such as medicine, engineering, and the social sciences. This talk explores the fundamental concepts of survival analysis, including life tables, censoring and truncation, the Kaplan-Meier curve, the log-rank test, and survival and hazard functions.
Weird factorials and the volume of a hypersphere by Nathan D'Silva
In this talk, I'll explore extensions of the factorial function, and use them to derive formulas for n-balls. We'll find why Gaussian distributions are a helpful tool for thinking about symmetric integrals, and calculate the volume of a -1 dimensional sphere.
SAURONN - Seismic Activity Online Recorded by Operating Neural Networks by Michael Alexander
Yo, listen up, let me drop some science in your ear, Talkin' 'bout seismic waves, we makin' things clear. Down in SNOLAB, 2 kilometers deep, Where physics meets underground, it's where we keep. I got this method, detectin' quakes in the mine, Characterizin' seismic activity, so fine. Core of the system, that's where I'm at, Transformin' data with fractal dimension, that's a fact. Let me break it down, focusin' on the heart, Fractal dimension, tearin' data apart. In SNOLAB's depths, where the action's at, Physics and earth, collidin' like that. So remember this rhyme, when you hear that beat, Seismic activity, underground elite. SNOLAB's the spot, where we do it right, Detectin' quakes with science, day and night
Quantum Gates Can’t be Free (C&O Prof Talk)
June 25, 2024
5:00 PM–6:00 PM
MC 4020
A basic fact of quantum physics, illustrated dramatically with Schrodinger’s cat, is that observing a quantum system will “collapse” it. This is problematic for quantum computing, as the states used for computation are delicate and any collapse will ruin a computation. Also, even small interactions with the environment count as “observations”. I will explain how we can reformulate this physical requirement as an optimization problem: find a unit vector v with non-negative entries such that is above some bound, and minimize , where S is an upper-triangular matrix with 1s just above the diagonal, and A is a diagonal matrix entries (0,1,2,3,…). I will give a clumsy proof of a non-tight bound, which is still surprisingly meaningful for physical systems.
PS: he has a parkour compilation on oxford campus
An introduction to infinite structural Ramsey theory (PMATH Prof Talk)
June 21, 2024
5:00 PM–6:00 PM
MC 4021
One instance of the infinite Ramsey theorem states that if you color every pair of distinct natural numbers red or blue, there is an infinite subset of numbers all of whose pairs receive the same color. We will discuss this theorem and its proof, then consider some possible generalizations. For instance, what if we have some infinite structure whose vertex set is the natural numbers, and we want our infinite subset of naturals to induce a copy of this structure? In another direction, what happens when instead of coloring pairs of naturals, we color infinite subsets?
S24 SASMS 1
June 12, 2024
6:30 PM–9:00 PM
MC 4020
Cauchy and Lebesgue Save the World (Alexander Henry):
I cover how the cauchy principle value is generally justified, how it determines
a distribution, some equivalences and parallels to lebesgue integration, and how that lets us all not die.
Quantifying the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus (Alex Pawelko):
The fundamental theorem of calculus is really cool, and it has relatively well-known analogues in higher dimensions (which will be introduced). What is less well-known is that certain specific parts of the 1-dimensional FTC break down in these settings, and we can quantify (!!!!) "how much" these parts break down using a nifty idea that goes by the fancy name "de Rham cohomology". In perhaps the coolest turn of mathematical events ever, it turns out that "how much" the FTC fails actually measures geometric/topological information in the higher dimensional spaces we are looking at, such as the number of "holes" in the space (for example, this method "detects" the hole in the middle of the circle in R^2), which we will explore!
stats is fucked (alice):
some ways people are bad at stats in papers and things. causal inference is fucked, significance testing is fucked, maybe also correlation coefficients are fucked if i have time
Construction with Straightedge and Compass (Peiran Tao):
A brief introduction to construction with straightedge and compass. Basic definitions and examples. Three ancient geometric problems of Greek (circle-squaring, cube-doubling, and angle trisection). We use the language of field theory to show the limitation of the construction with straightedge and compass (in particular, angle trisection using straightedge and compass is not always possible).
S24 Disorg
May 15, 2024
5:00 PM–6:30 PM
MC 5501
As we move to an Evan-less future, PMAMCOC comes bearing some news. If you like your execs, this news will be good for you. If you don’t, this news will be great for you.
The PMAMCOC termly disorganizational meeting is happening Wednesday, May 15 at 5pm in MC 5501. Come by and vote for execs for the Spring term. You can re-elect any of your old execs, make new people run, or run yourself! (democracy, am I right?).
Hope to see y'all there!