Mathematics Colloquia and Seminars

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The study of Patterns in Permutation has recently become an increasingly popular research topic, with many applications and generalizations still less than a decade old. The field itself, though, got its start in 1968 as the solutions to a series of exercises from Volume One of Donald Knuth's "The Art of Computer Programming". These exercises essentially asked the reader to analyze how well a stack can be used as part of a sorting algorithm.

In this talk we will begin by explaining why one might actually be interested in trying to use a stack for sorting. We will then detail the mathematics behind both these exercises and their solutions. We will then discuss several interesting generalizations as time allows.

Required prerequisite knowledge of combinatorics will be kept to a minimum.