Scientific

Many systems exhibit a digit bias. For example, the first digit base 10 of the Fibonacci numbers or of 2^n equals 1 about 30% of the time; the IRS uses this digit bias to detect fraudulent corporate tax returns. This phenomenon, known as Benford's Law, was first noticed by observing which pages of log tables were most worn from age- it's a good thing there were no calculators 100 years ago! We'll discuss the general theory and application, talk about some fun examples (ranging from the 3x + 1 problem to the Riemann zeta function), and discuss some current open problems suitable for undergraduate research projects.

For any $r\geq 2$, an $r$-uniform hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$, and integer $n$, the \emph{Tur\'{a}n number} for $\mathcal{H}$ is the maximum number of hyperedges in any $r$-uniform hypergraph on $n$ vertices containing no copy of $\mathcal{H}$. While the Tur\'{a}n numbers of graphs are well-understood and exact Tur\'{a}n numbers are known for some classes of graphs, few exact results are known for the cases $r \geq 3$. I will present a construction, using quadratic residues, for an infinite family of hypergraphs having no copy of the $4$-uniform hypergraph on $5$ vertices with $3$ hyperedges, with the maximum number of hyperedges subject to this condition. I will also describe a connection between this construction and a `switching' operation on tournaments, with applications to finding new bounds on Tur\'{a}n numbers for other small hypergraphs.

Which real numbers arise as the entropies of continuous, multimodal, postcritically finite self-maps of real intervals? This is the "one-dimensional" analogue of a more famous open question: which real numbers arise as the dilatations of pseudo-Anosov surface diffeomorphisms? In "Entropy in Dimension One," W. Thurston answers this one-dimensional version of the question. We'll discuss a small subset of the many beautiful ideas and questions in this paper.

The PIMS-UBC Math Job Forum is an annual Forum to help graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in Mathematics and related areas with their job searches. The session is divided in two parts: short presentations from our panel followed by a discussion.

Learn the secrets of writing an effective research statement, developing an outstanding CV, and giving a winning job talk. We will address questions like: Who do I ask for recommendation letters? What kind of jobs should I apply to? What can I do to maximize my chances of success?

As the underlying configuration behind many elegant finite structures, partial difference sets have been intensively studied in design theory, finite geometry, coding theory, and graph theory. Over the past three decades, there have been numerous constructions of partial difference sets in abelian groups with high exponent, accompanied by numerous very different and delicate techniques. Surprisingly, we manage to unify and extend a great many previous constructions in a common framework, using only elementary methods. The key insight is that, instead of focusing on one single partial difference set, we consider a packing of partial difference sets, namely, a collection of disjoint partial difference sets in a finite abelian group. Although the packing of partial difference sets has been implicitly studied in various contexts, we recognize that a particular subgroup reveals crucial structural information about the packing. Identifying this subgroup allows us to formulate a recursive lifting construction of packings in abelian groups of increasing exponent.

This is joint work with Jonathan Jedwab.

Speaker Bio

Shuxing Li received his Ph. D. degree in Mathematics from Zhejiang University, China, in 2016. From September 2016 to September 2017, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Department of Mathematics, Simon Fraser University. He was an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow from October 2017 to September 2019, at Faculty of Mathematics, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany. Since November 2019, he is a PIMS Postdoctoral Fellow at Department of Mathematics, Simon Fraser University. His research focuses on finite configurations with strong symmetry, which involves algebraic and combinatorial design theory, algebraic coding theory, and finite geometry. In 2018, he received the Kirkman Medal from the Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications in recognition of the excellence of his research.