The Monty Hall Problem with Becky Crossley. Blew a few minds on social media. There's a longer version with the maths here.
16:00
Pointwise bounds for 3-torsion (note: Wednesday)
Abstract
For $\ell$ an odd prime number and $d$ a squarefree integer, a notable problem in arithmetic statistics is to give pointwise bounds for the size of the $\ell$-torsion of the class group of $\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{d})$. This is in general a difficult problem, and unconditional pointwise bounds are only available for $\ell = 3$ due to work of Pierce, Helfgott—Venkatesh and Ellenberg—Venkatesh. The current record due to Ellenberg—Venkatesh is $h_3(d) \ll_\epsilon d^{1/3 + \epsilon}$. We will discuss how to improve this to $h_3(d) \ll d^{0.32}$. This is joint work with Peter Koymans.
14:00
Chabauty limits of fixed point groups of p-adic involutions
Abstract
Let G be a connected reductive group defined over a non-Archimedean local field k. Endow G with a k-involution and take H to be the fixed-point subgroup in G of that involution. In this talk I will report on some of my recent results regarding Chabauty limits of H(k) inside G(k). Although the results are similar to the real and complex cases, the techniques are totally different and with a strong geometric flavor. Some of the main actors are the Bruhat—Tits building associated with G(k) and basic methods from CAT(0) geometry.