SMS scnews item created by Leo Tzou at Mon 26 Oct 2015 2044
Type: Seminar
Modified: Fri 27 Nov 2015 1620
Distribution: World
Expiry: 25 Oct 2016
Calendar1: 4 Dec 2015 1400-1500
CalLoc1: Carslaw 275
CalTitle1: Adding Numbers and Shuffling Cards
Auth: leo@220.240.17.235 (ltzo2369) in SMS-WASM

Joint Colloquium: Persi Diaconis -- Adding Numbers and Shuffling Cards

When numbers are added in the usual way, ’carries’ occur.  These carries turn out to be
a Markov chain with an ’amazing’ transition matrix.  This same matrix occurs in the
usual method of riffle shuffling cards, as the ’Foulkes character table’ for the
symmetric group and and in the analysis of fractals.  I will try to explain all this to
a non specialist audience.  This is joint work with Jason Fulman