When not knowing can slow you down

Combinatorial pattern matching is a subject which has given us fast and elegant algorithms for a number of practical real world problems as well as being of great theoretical interest. However, when single character wildcards or so-called "don't know" symbols are introduced into the input, classic methods break down and it becomes much more challenging to find provably fast solutions. This talk will give a brief overview of recent results in the area of pattern matching with don't knows and show how techniques from fields as disperse FFTs, group testing and algebraic coding theory have been required to make any progress. We will, if time permits, also discuss the main open problems in the area.