CoSy seminar: "I’ve got problems"

Everyone is welcome and the first 40 people to register will be treated to a free lunch sandwich. If you do not want lunch, you are still welcome to join.

Register for a lunch sandwich (before Sunday 23 November).

Abstract: I love to come up with mathematical problems and have been fortunate to have several proposals published in the American Mathematical Monthly over the last couple of years. What makes a problem ”great” is open to debate. The setup ought to be intriguing, the question natural, and the solution challenging to discover yet satisfying and clear once revealed. It’s a welcome bonus when the final answer is unexpectedly elegant or when a seemingly complex system turns out to be surprisingly simple - or the other way around. In this presentation I will explain why this hobby matters to me beyond just being fun. I will also explore how a modern large language model handles some of my unpublished problems, and reflect on whether the criteria for what makes a problem ”great” may need updating. To wrap up, I’ll present a few lingering problems I haven’t cracked yet.

This is a lecture in the seminar series held by CIM (Centre for Interdisciplinary Mathematics).