3264 Conics in a Second Bernd Sturmfels

Rostock Open International Math Seminar

in an open online video form

on topics of Algebra, Geometry, Discrete Math and Optimization

Idea by Jörg M. Wills; Image by Peter Scholl June 17th 2020 6am (Berkeley, UTC-7) / 3pm (Berlin, UTC+2) / 9pm (Beijing, UTC+8) 3264 Conics in a Second Bernd Sturmfels

Director, Max-Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Leipzig, Germany Professor of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, University of California at Berkeley DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS MICHALIK LECTURE SERIES 3264 Conics June 17th 2020 3pm (Berlin, UTC+2) Rostock Open ininternational a online seminarSecond 3264Two fundamental Conics pillars in of mathematics, a Second algebra and geometry come together in the study Berndof properties Sturmfels of geometric objects. For example, counting the number of intersections of two solids gives rise to a problem in algebra. Dr. Sturmfels Enumerativeworks algebraicat this interface, geometry countsboth in the developing solutions to theorycertain and in using computer-based geometric constraints. Numerical algebraic geometry determines these solutions for any given instance. This lecture illustrates how these statisticstwo ﬁelds complementand computational each other, biology. In this lecture, he illustrates these methods especiallyin the in thestudy light of of aemerging famous new 19th applications. century problem, We start with sometimes a known as “Steiner’s gem from19th century geometry, namely the 3264 conics that are tangentconic to ﬁve problem,” given conics on in the the tangency plane. This of topic conics. was featuredHe also in discusses applications to the the Januarystatistical 2020 problemissue of the of Notices maximum of the likelihood American Mathematical estimation, which relates to computing Society. We conclude with an application in statistics, namely maximum likelihood estimation for linear Gaussian covariance models.

The lectureFree and Registration reception areat free and open to the public. https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/RostockOpen

Dr. Bernd Sturmfels received doctoral degrees in 1987 from the University of Washington and the Technical Uni- versityFriday, Darmstadt, and an honorary February doctorate in 2015 28, 2020 from the Goethe University Frankfurt. After postdoctoral years in Minneapolis and Linz, he taught at Cornell Uni- versity,University before joining UC Berkeley in 1995, whereClub, he is Ballroom B Professor of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Sci- ence. Since 2017 he is a director at the Max-Planck Insti- tute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Leipzig. In 2018 he became3:30–4:30 Honarary Professor at Technical University p.m. Berlin and University of Leipzig. His awards include a David and Lucile Packard Fellowship, a Clay Senior Scholarship, the SIAMReception von Neumann Lecturership, immediately the Sarlo Distinguished following lecture Mentoring Award, and the George David Birkhoff Prize in Applied Mathematics. He is a fellow of the AMS and SIAM, and a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. Sturmfels mentored 50 doctoral students and numerous postdocs, and he authored ten books and 250 researchBernd articles, in combinatorics, Sturmfels commutative algebra, algebraic geometry, and their applications to ﬁelds like statistics,Director, optimization, Max-Planck and computational Institute biology. for Mathematics in the Sciences, Leipzig, Germany Professor of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science University of California at Berkeley

For more information, visit mathematics.pitt.edu.