Hello all, The next MaPSS talk of this semester will be at 17:00 on Mon 15th April in Carslaw 535. It’s a great opportunity to meet fellow postgrads, listen to an interesting talk, and of course get some free pizza! ************************************************************************************** Speaker: Joel Gibson Title: An introduction to error-correcting codes Abstract: Error-correcting codes are used all over the digital world to detect and recover from various errors, whether they be a noisy connection, a hard-drive failure, a scratched-up CD, or even a partially-revealed QR code. Almost all of these algorithms are algebraic at heart, relying on the properties of linear algebra and polynomials over finite fields to operate. In this talk, I cover some of the basics of error detection and correction, before showing how an optimal encoding algorithm can be built out of basic algebraic structures, such as vector spaces over Z/pZ, the integers modulo a prime number. ************************************************************************************** See you there! Details can also be found on the school’s new Postgraduate Society website: http://www.maths.usyd.edu.au/u/MaPS/mapss.2019.html Cheers, Eric