Friday, September 25, 2009
3:30 pm, MC 5158

Jim Geelen
University of Waterloo

Matroids, Diophantine equations, and decidability

For a field $F$ we consider the problem of deciding whether or not a given matroid is representable over the field. We show that this is equivalent to the problem of deciding whether or not a given system of Diophantine equations has a solution over $F$. This is joint work with Shalev Ben David.

The talk will be accessible to a general mathematics audience. Knowledge of matroid theory is not required.