When does a problem have a solution?

21 Apr 2009 - 13:32:49 in Event
MSORColloquia img.jpg

Hot on the heels of the first of the MSOR School Colloquium Talks - Richard Arnold 's talk on earthquakes and his election night forecasting, which attracted a large audience - comes the second colloquium talk, this time by Rod Downey. Rod's talk, "When does a problem have a solution: A logician and computability theorist's view", is aimed at a very general audience, and will be accessible to beginning graduate or even advanced undergraduate students.

The talk will be given in the Cotton Club (CO339) at 4pm on Friday May 8th, with refreshments to follow. For more information about the MSOR Research Colloquia, visit http://msor.victoria.ac.nz/Main/MSORColloquia, or click on the link on the left side of this page. A short description of Rod's talk is given below:

Much of mathematics is devoted to giving solutions to equations, calculating solutions to problems, classifying structures according to invariants and the like. Natural questions arise as to when this is not possible. This talk looks at questions such as this tracing, in a idiosyncratic way, a historical line leading to modern incarnations wherein logic allows us to show that no invariants are possible for (e.g.) certain problems in group theory. This is done by showing that normal mathematical structures can be caused to emulate computation in faithful ways.