University of Connecticut Department of Mathematics Colloquium

Bernd Sturmfels (University of California at Berkeley) Quartic Curves and Their Bitangents MSB 118 - Friday, March 30, 2012 at 1:00 pm

UNUSUAL time.

	We present a computational study of plane curves of degree four, with primary focus on writing their defining polynomials as sums of squares and as symmetric determinants. Number theorists will enjoy the appearance of the Weyl group E7 as the Galois group of the 28 bitangents. Based on joint work with Daniel Plaumann and Cynthia Vinzant, this lecture spans a bridge from 19th century algebra to 21st century optimization.

Colloquium Webpage: http://www.math.uconn.edu/Seminars/show_seminars.php?Subject=colloquium