The Combinatorics of Voting Paradoxes

Presented by Noga Alon, Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, Tel Aviv University and Microsoft, Israel

This lecture is part of the IPAM workshop “Probabilistic Techniques and Applications" and is sponsored by IPAM, the UCLA Mathematics Department and Computer Science Department.

Video of the public lecture can be viewed online here. Real Audio player is required to see the video and can be downloaded here.

Time and Location:

Monday, October 5, 2009, 4:30 pm
Franz Hall Room 1178 (maps and directions)

Light refreshments in the IPAM lobby starting at 4:00 PM
Reception in the IPAM building immediately following the lecture.

For more information about this lecture (including directions and parking) and the workshop, visit our website, or call (310) 825-4755.

Abstract:

The early work of Condorcet in the 18th century, and that of Arrow and others in the 20th century, revealed the complex and interesting mathematical problems that arise in the theory of Social Choice, showing that the simple process of voting leads to strikingly counter-intuitive paradoxes. I will describe some of these, focusing on several recent intriguing examples.

The Speaker:

Noga Alon is a Baumritter Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Tel Aviv University and Microsoft, in Israel. He received his Ph.D. in Mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1983 and had visiting positions at research institutes, including MIT, The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, IBM Almaden Research Center, Bell Laboratories, Bellcore and Microsoft Research. He published more than 400 research papers, mostly in Combinatorics and in Theoretical Computer Science, and one book. He is a member of the Israel National Academy of Sciences since 1997 and of the Academia Europaea since 2008, and received the Erdös prize in 1989, the Feher prize in 1991, the Polya Prize in 2000, the Bruno Memorial Award in 2001, the Landau Prize in 2005, the Gödel Prize in 2005 and the Israel Prize in 2008. He was a plenary speaker at the 2002 International Congress of Mathematician.

Contact Us:

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