Geometry Seminar
Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NYU.

Location: Room 512 , Warren Weaver Hall.
Time: Tuesday, 6:00PM to 7:00PM
 (Unless mentioned otherwise.)

For more information please contact Prof. Richard Pollack (pollack "AT" cims.nyu.edu).

The geometry seminar covers a wide range of topics in geometry with particular emphasis on discrete geometry, computational geometry and algorithmic real algebraic geometry. Many of the speakers are Courant Institute visitors and postdocs. A seminar talk may cover original research or report on an interesting paper. The seminar is run by Janos Pach and Richard Pollack.
Fall 2012
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Spring 2012
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Fall 2011
Sep 20, Egon Schulte , Northeastern University, Boston.
Polyhedral geometries and graphs for crystallographic groups.

Sep 27, Larry Guth , Courant Institute, NYU.
The Erdos distinct distance problem.

Oct 11, Zoltan Furedi , Renyi Institute, Budapest and UIUC, Urbana-Champaigh, IL, USA.
Coin-weighings and different directions of lines

Oct 18, Michael Burr , Fordham University.
Dynamic Algorithms for Half-Space Depth.

Oct 25, Justin Iwerks , State University of New York, Stony Brook.
Guarding polyominoes.

Nov 01, Joab Winkler , The University of Sheffield, UK.
The Computation of multiple roots of polynomials whose coefficients are inexact.

Nov 08, Shachar Lovett , Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton.
Existence of small families of t-wise independent permutations and t-designs via local limit theorems.

Nov 15, Jon Lenchner , IBM.
Sylvester-Gallai-like Theorems for Polygons in the Plane.

Nov 22, Janos Pach , EPFL & NYU.
Some extensions of Szemeredi's theorem.

Dec 6, Marjorie Senechal , Smith College.
Biogeometry, 1941.



Spring 2011
Jan 11, Paco Santos , Universidad de Cantabria, Spain.
A counter-example to the Hirsch conjecture.

Jan 25, Zeljka Ljujic , CUNY Graduate Center.
Inverse problem for lattice points

Feb 01, Mordechai Novick , Hebrew University, Israel.
Improved Bounds on the (1,k)-Separation Problem.

Feb 08, George Purdy , University of Cincinnati.
Inequalities Between the Number of Points, Lines, Planes, etc Spanned by n Points. Cancelled!

Feb 15, Zoltan Furedi , Renyi Institute, Budapest and UIUC, Urbana-Champaigne.
Coin-weighings and different directions of lines. Talk Cancelled.

Feb 15, Elizabeth Chen , University of Michigan.
Mandelbrot set + Symmetry groups * Higher dimensions = ?

Feb 22, Steven Simon , Courant Institue, NYU.
Two Generalizations of the Ham Sandwich Theorem

Mar 08, Justin Malestein, Temple University.
Generic Periodic Rigidity

Mar 29, George W. Hart, Museum of Mathematics.
Geometry at the Museum of Mathematics

Apr 5, Igor Rivin , Temple University.
Topological designs.

Apr 12, George Purdy , University of Cincinnati.
Inequalities Between the Number of Points, Lines, Planes, etc Spanned by n Points.

May 03, Rolf Schneider , University of Freiburg, Germany.
Typical polytopes in random mosaics.

May 10, Werner Krandick , Drexel University.
On the Computing Time of the Continued Fractions Method.



Fall 2010
Sep 7, Betseygail Rand , Texas Lutheran College.
Pattern-Equivariant Cohomology of Tiling Spaces with Rotations. Talk Cancelled.

Sep 21, Jon Lenchner , IBM T.J. Watson Research Center.
Omittable Planes

Sep 28, Anders Björner , KTH, Stockholm.
A cell complex in number theory. Talk cancelled.

Oct 05, Ileana Streinu , Smith College.
How far can you reach?

Oct 19, Natan Rubin , Tel Aviv University.
Improved Bounds for Geometric Permutations.

Oct 26, Tom Hales , University of Pittsburgh.
On Fejes Toth's contact conjecture for sphere packings

Nov 02, Matt Kahle , IAS, Princeton.
Configuration spaces of hard discs.

Nov 9, Ken Stephenson , University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Spontaneous Geometry via Circle Packing.

Nov 16, Peter Shor , MIT.
Quantum Money from Knots.

Nov 23, Esther Ezra , NYU.
Improved Bounds for the Union of Fat Triangles.

Nov 30, Noga Alon , Tel Aviv U and IAS, Princeton.
Hypergraph list coloring and Euclidean Ramsey Theory.

Dec 07, Alfredo Hubard , Courant Institute, NYU.
From the sandwich to the waist.

Dec 21, Endre Szemeredi, , Rutgers University.
Convexity and Sum Sets.



Spring 2010
Feb 09, Yoav Kallus, Cornell University.
Tetrahedron Packing and Related Problems

Feb 16, Imre Barany, Alfréd Rényi Mathematical Institute.
Simultaneous partitions by k-fans

Feb 23, Muriel Dulieu, Polytechnic Institute of NYU.
Witness Proximity graphs.

March 09, Joseph O'Rourke , Smith College.
New Methods for Unfolding Convex Polyhedra.

March 16, Joseph Mitchell , Stony Brook University.
A constant factor approximation for TSP with neighborhoods in the plane.

March 23, Wlodzimierz Kuperberg , Auburn University.
Unavoidable crossings in plane coverings.

March 30, Henry Cohn , Microsoft Research.
Symmetry and symmetry breaking in optimization problems.

April 6, Gunter Ziegler , TU Berlin.
3N colored points in a plane.

April 13, Saugata Basu , Purdue University.
A complex analogue of Toda's theorem.

April 27 April 20, Ileana Streinu , Smith College.
How far can you reach?. Talk Cancelled.

May 04, Michael Engel , University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Packing of regular tetrahedra: A combined analytical and numerical search.

May 11, Bernard Chazelle , Princeton University.
Talk Cancelled.



Fall 2009
September 1, Leonid Gurvits, Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The Van Der Waerden conjecture for the mixed volume, its proof and algorithmic applications.

September 8, Eran Nevo, Cornell University.
A characterization of simplicial polytopes with g2=1.

September 29, Gil Kalai, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Yale University.
Around the Hirsch Conjecture.

October 06, Alfred Inselberg, Tel Aviv University.
Visualizing RN and some new dualities.

October 13, Peter Gruber, Technical University, Vienna.
Lattice packing of convex bodies.

October 20, Facundo Memoli, Stanford University.
Object matching under invariances and the Gromov-Hausdorff distance.

October 27, Alicia Dickenstein, Universidad de Buenos Aires.
Tropicalisation of rational varieties .

November 3, Robert Connelly, Cornell University.
Global Rigidity.

November 10, William T. Trotter, Georgia Institute of Technology.
Planar Graphs and Planar Posets.

November 17, Valeriu Soltan, George Mason University.
On two Helly-type theorems.

November 24, John Conway, Princeton University.
The Geometrical Theorems of Pascal and Penrose.
Note: This talk will be held in room 109, WWH.
Note: This talk will be held in room 1302, WWH.


December 15, William L. Steiger, Rutgers University.
Generalized Ham-Sandwich Cuts.



Spring 2009
January 20, Andreas Holmsen, KAIST, Republic of Korea.
A simple proof of a theorem by Larman.

January 27, Vitali Milman, Tel Aviv University.
Hidden Structures in the Family of Convex Functions in Rn and the New Duality Transform..

February 3, Esther Ezra , Duke University.
Small-size Epsilon-Nets for Geometric Range Spaces.

February 10, Lucas Rusnak , Binghamton University, SUNY.
Multi-Directed Hypergraph Representations of {0, +1, -1}-Matrices..

February 17, Thomas Zaslavsky , Binghamton University, SUNY.
A Taste of Algebraic Combinatorics for (Combinatorial) Geometry.

February 24, Saugata Basu , Purdue University.
Polynomial hierarchy, Betti numbers and a real analogue of Toda's theorem.

March 03, Jay Sulzberger , Energetica Systems, NYC.
On the Second Half of Boole's Laws of Thought.

March 24, Po-Shen Loh , Princeton University.
Maximizing the number of colorings.

March 31, Joe Mitchell , Stony Brook University.
Algorithms and Heuristics for Placing and Moving Guards in Art Galleries

April 7, Garry Bowlin , Binghamton University, SUNY.
The Gale-Berlekamp Switching Game.

April 14, Emanuele Delucchi , Binghamton University, SUNY.
Discrete Morse Theory for Arrangements of Hyperplanes.

April 21, Charles Steinhorn , Vassar College.
Linear orders in o-minimal structures with an application to economics.

April 28, Igor Pak , University of Minnesota.
Inflating polyhedral surfaces

May 5, Louis Billera , Cornell University.
The Enumerative Combinatorial Geometry of Coxeter Groups.

Leonidas Guibas , Stanford University.
Topological Tools In The Analysis of Point Cloud Data.
Talk Canceled.
Fall 2008
October 7, Gert Vegter , University of Groningen.
Envelope Surfaces.

October 14, Martin Henk , Universität Magdeburg.
Polynomial representations of Polyhedra.

October 21, Gil Kalai , Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.
Noise Sensitivity, Noise Stability and Percolation.

October 28, Michel Pocchiola , ENS, Paris.
Arrangements of double pseudolines

November 4, Marie Francoise Roy , University of Rennes.
Geometric Properties of Multivariate Bernstein Basis and Certificates of Positivity.

November 7, Janos Pach , Courant Instsitute and EPFL.
Conflict-free Colorings
Note: Different time and location!
Friday November 7, 2:00PM to 3:00PM in Room 101, WWH.

November 18, Alexander Barvinok , University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
An approximation algorithm for counting contingency tables.

December 2, Van Vu , Rutgers University.
Random matrices:Universality of the spectral distribution and the circular law.

December 9, Xavier Goaoc , Loria, France.
Lower Bounds for Pinning Lines by Balls.

January 6, Pankaj Agarwal, Duke University.
Approximate Shortest Paths amid Convex Obstacles.

January 13, Martin Tancer, Charles University, Prague.
Hardness of embedding simplicial complexes in Rd



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