Wed Nov 18 · 3:15pm
Richard P. Stanley Seminar in Combinatorics: Jim Propp (UMass Lowell and Radcliffe Institute)
Jim Propp of UMass Lowell and the Radcliffe Institute presents “Snake graphs and q-deformed real numbers,” a statistical-mechanical construction that extends the q-deformed rationals of Morier-Genoud and Ovsienko to irrational numbers, using random dimer covers of infinite snake graphs. He starts from Stern's diatomic series and the Calkin–Wilf bijection. Propp is known for work on domino tilings of the Aztec diamond and, with David Wilson, coupling from the past.