[Female-math-faculty] WIM Fall Speaker: Kate Stange

[Fiona Dunbar]

The Women in Math Fall Lecture will be Monday November 23 at 4:00pm in MC
5158, with treats set out before the talk at 3:30pm.

This year's speaker is Kate Stange, BMath 2001. Kate holds a PIMS
Postdoctoral Fellowship jointly at UBC and SFU, and is on leave from
her NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard. Kate will be available to
chat informally about her experiences as a "Woman in Math" before and
after her talk.

Title:  The underlying geometry of recurrence sequences

Abstract:  If n is the index of the first Fibonacci number divisible
by a prime p (other than 5), then n divides p^2 - 1.  It turns out
that this is a result of group theory: certain recurrence sequences,
including linear recurrences such as the Fibonacci numbers, are
governed by related algebraic groups and their geometry.  We'll start
with Lucas's work on linear recurrences and the multiplicative group,
pause to consider another famous sequence associated to the additive
group, and then move on to sequences governed by elliptic curves.
We'll see a classification theorem and a higher dimensional analogue
to the Fibonacci numbers.  (No knowledge of elliptic curves will be
assumed.  The talk will be suitable for upper year undergraduates.)