Speaker: 

Persi Diaconis

Institution: 

Stanford

Time: 

Thursday, April 27, 2017 - 4:00pm

Location: 

PSCB 140

Abstract: When numbers are added in the usual way, "carries" occur along
the way. Making math sense of the carries leads to all sorts of
corners, in particular to the mathematics of shuffling cards. I will
show that it takes seven ordinary riffle shuffles to mix up 52 cards and
explain connections to fractals and other lovely mathematical objects.
This is a talk for a general audience, no specialist knowledge needed.