Special Colloquium, Victoria Akin (University of Chicago)

Event Date: 

Friday, February 10, 2017 - 4:00pm to 5:00pm

Event Location: 

  • 6635 South Hall
Title: A clever spider's guide to catching flies.
 
Abstract: A hungry spider sits in the corner of a rectangular room. Fortunately for the spider, a fly is just above in the far corner of an adjacent wall. What is the shortest route that the spider can take to reach the fly? This problem is easily solved using nets! In this talk, I’ll define nets, explore their relationship to spanning trees, and consider several (astoundingly) open questions.