Hello, Math Students and all interested parties:

Please join us for the weekly Mathematics Colloquium:Thursday, September 24, 2015 4 p.m. BSS 166 "A Proof that √ 2   is Irrational and an Introduction to Convexity” with Dr. Richard Spjut, S-Matrix Corporation, Eureka, California

The proof was popularized by Conway in the 1990s. Miller and Montague (arxiv:0909:4913) attribute the proof to Tennenbaum during the 1950s. Afterward, we will explore the adjective convex in mathematics. Convex sets, functions, polytopes, hulls, combinations, conjugates, and convex optimization are topics of interest. Further topics may include extreme points, Carthéodory’s theorem, and the separating hyperplane theorem.

Spectrahedrons are the feasible sets of semidefinite programs. The 'moral' of the story is that a surprising number of optimization problems can be expressed in a form in which the techniques of conex cone programming are useful. The go-to surprising example is the max-cut problem in combinatorics. The photo can be attributed to Sturmfelds or his graduate students.