Edit made on September 10, 2021 by MichaelJones at 13:40:47
Deleted text in red
/
Inserted text in green
WC
HEADERS_END
LivMS Event:
* *Date:* Wednesday 13 Oct, 2021
* *Time:* 17:00-18:00
* *Presenter:* Colva Roney-Dougal
* *Title:* Party hard! The maths of connections
* *Audience:* Year 11 up, teachers and all interested in mathematics
* *Venue:* Online
* *Contact:* Peter Giblin
* There will be no charge *Registration:* Via the [Eventbrite](https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/168099561313) page for the lecture but registration will be needed. Further details will be posted nearer the time. event
----
IMG:colva.jpg
IMG:colva2.png
How many guests need to come to a party, to guarantee that either at least five of them all know each other or at least five are mutual strangers? This question turns out to be surprisingly hard to solve, and has led to the creation of some maths that feels more like a newspaper puzzle than real work. We'll explore connections ranging from friendship, through marriage, to the spread of infectious diseases.
----
Colva's research is mostly in finite group theory, with a few excursions into theoretical computer science. More recently she has been dipping her toe in the infinite as well. There is information on group theory in Colva's article for Plus magazine available at https://plus.maths.org/content/os/issue39/features/colva/index/ She has written another article for Plus magazine on Chaos, Chance and Money: https://plus.maths.org/content/os/issue49/features/colva/index/ She has taken part in numerous radio broadcasts about mathematical subjects such as Carl Friedrich Gauss, the history of probability, Indian mathematics and Maths in the Islamic world.