Speaker Name: Emilie Wiesner (ewiesner at ithaca dot edu)
Speaker Afiliation: Ithaca College
Abstract: Have you ever played Sudoku? Have you wondered what makes one puzzle harder than another?, what the minimum number of clues could be?, how many puzzles there are? So have other mathematicians!
I'll talk about these questions and, in particular, how mathematicians have tried to count the number of puzzles. This turns out to be a tough count to make, and mathematicians have used clever counting strategies from Combinatorics and Abstract Algebra to do it.
Target Audience: A large portion of the talk doesn't require any particular mathematical background, but students can follow more easily if they have seen some counting arguments. There is also an optional part of the talk that uses group theory.
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