The 18th Annual Charles R. DePrima Memorial
Undergraduate Mathematics Lecture
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
4:15 p.m.  151 Sloan

Bernd Sturmfels
University of California at Berkeley

Tropical Mathematics

Abstract: In tropical arithmetic, the sum of two numbers is their maximum and the product of two numbers is their usual sum. Many results familiar from algebra and geometry, including the Quadratic Formula, the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra, and Bezout's Theorem, continue to hold in the tropical world. In this lecture we learn how to draw tropical curves and why evolutionary biologists might care about this.

Bernd Sturmfels is a Professor of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science at UC Berkeley. A leading experimentalist among mathematicians, Sturmfels has authored ten books and 175 research articles in the areas of combinatorics, algebraic geometry, symbolic computation and their applications. He currently works on algebraic methods in optimization, statistics and the life sciences.

You are invited to attend a dinner following the Charles R. DePrima Memorial Lectures in Mathematics at The Athenaeum on Tuesday, May 19, 2009

The Charles R. DePrima Memorial Undergraduate Mathematics Lecture was established by a gift from Charles R. DePrima and Margaret Thurmond DePrima. The Institute is privileged to honor the memory of Professor DePrima and his distinguished contribution to mathematics and Caltech, where he served as a faculty member for over forty years, with a lecture each year by an outstanding mathematician. Professor DePrima perceived that there were few or no special talks or seminars designed for undergraduates; he and Margaret DePrima intended that this lecture series would fill that need.