SYD-UNSW Joint Colloquium : Joswig -- Tropical Combinatorics

This is the second talk of the colloquium double-header. 

The first talk is announced at 

http://www.maths.usyd.edu.au/s/scnitm/zhangou-SYD-UNSWJointColloquium-F-001

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Speaker: Prof. Michael Joswig (TU-Darmstadt)

http://www.mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de/~joswig/

Time: Friday, Nov. 30, 3--4PM

Room: Chemistry Lecture Theatre 2

Lunch plan: meet near Level 2 entrance to Carslaw Building around 1PM. 
The lunch would be at Law Annex Cafe with reservation at 1:05PM. 

Please keep in mind that our schedule would be a little tight with 
Algebra Seminar finishing at 1PM and the first colloquium talk starting 
at 2:05PM.  

Refreshments would be provided by the school in the common room on 
Level 7 around 4PM. 

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Title: Tropical Combinatorics

Abstract: it is a key observation, made by Kapranov, Mikhalkin,
Sturmfels, and others, that relevant geometric problems have a
combinatorial core. This lead to the invention of tropical
geometry as something like a "piece-wise linear shadow of
algebraic geometry". Specializing tropical algebraic geometry
to the linear case leads to the subject of max-plus linear
algebra. This field, rooted in optimization, is much older
than tropical geometry. It is linked with signal processing,
functional analysis and other areas. The goal of this talk is
to give examples of simple combinatorial concepts which evolve
into theorems which are interesting for pure as well as applied
mathematics.

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Joint Colloquium web site: 

http://www.maths.usyd.edu.au/u/SemConf/JointColloquium/index.html