| Date: | Wed, 10 May 2000 |
| From: | Peter Clifford |
| Subject: | The ultimate talk (SPAMS) |
That's right, it's the last spams talk of the year, and yet again we have
Marky Mark Skandera doing the honours. Somehow he is capable of putting
his acting, singing and modeling career on hold long enough to do some
fascinating combinatorics. As Mark is graduating, he asked could he make
this a memorable event by giving the talk without wearing any clothes.
The maths department politely suggested that he make the mathematics
memorable instead.
Title: 95% Of All Permutation Statistics Are Made Up
In 1980, Don Rawlings made up an interesting permutation statistic which
generalizes MAJ and INV. To fully appreciate it, we will review the
definitions of these and other permutation statistics, including one which
I made up. We will use recursive formulas and bijections to demonstrate
the equidistributions of various permutation statstics.
This talk will not involve any probability or statistics. Anyone who asks
a question about either of these two topics will be escorted from the room
by my bodyguards Peter and Francis.
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Mark is a Europhile, so after the talk we will have Indian food. There
might be a group going out for dessert also - hang around if you're
interested.
Happy Summer!
http://www-math.mit.edu/~peter/spams.html