Dear students,
The Jr. Colloquium this week will be tomorrow (Thursday) at 1:25pm (to not
conflict with Honors Day), not 3:35pm as usual.
Judy Walker is an excellent speaker and a prominent coding theorist. (Coding
Theory studies efficient ways to introduce redundancy in information subject to
interference, in order to be able to detect and even correct errors in the
transmission.) The talk should be fun and informative. I would like to
encourage all to come.
More info, including abstract is below.
Best to all,
Luis
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JUNIOR COLLOQUIUM
TIME: 1:25 - 2:25 p.m.
ROOM: Ayres 405
SPEAKER: Professor Judy Walker, University of Nebraska
TITLE: What color is my hat? And what does that have to do with my ipod?
ABSTRACT: As each of three people enter a room, either an orange hat or a white
hat (with the color chosen randomly and independently) is placed on his head.
Each person can see the other hats but not his own. They can discuss strategy
before they enter the room, but after they've entered no communication is
allowed. Once they've looked at the other hats, the players must simultaneously
guess their own hat colors or pass. The group shares a prize if at least one
person guesses correctly and no one guesses incorrectly. The "obvious" strategy
(one person guesses "Orange" no matter what and the other two pass) yields a 50%
success rate. Is there a better strategy? What if there are more than three
players? We will use the theory of error-correcting codes to find the optimal
strategy for this game in many situations.
Pizza will be available at 3:15 p.m.
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