Title: Randomness, well-posedness, and Bertrand’s paradox

Abstract: We will discuss Bertrand’s Paradox, a famous problem in probability. The question is the following: what is the probability that a random chord in a given circle is longer than the side of the equilateral triangle inscribed in the circle? Since the problem is not well-posed, we can find at least five "correct" answers to this question. We will present these different approaches and discuss the concepts of randomness and well-posedness.

Refreshments will be served at 3:30 pm before the lecture in POT 745.

About the speaker: Mihai Stoiciu received his undergraduate degree in Mathematics at the University of Bucharest, Romania and his Ph.D. (also in Mathematics) at Caltech in Pasadena, CA (dissertation title: "Zeros of Random Orthogonal Polynomials on the Unit Circle"). After graduating from Caltech, Stoiciu started as an Assistant Professor at Williams College, where he is now an Associate Professor. At Williams, Stoiciu teaches courses at all levels and has advised seven Honors Theses and three summer REU Programs. He spent leaves and sabbaticals at the Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge, UK, at University of California Irvine, and at University of Wisconsin Madison. Stoiciu's research is in Mathematical Physics and Functional Analysis and his current interests are in Schrodinger operators and random matrices.

The J.C. Eaves Lecture is supported by the Dr. J.C. Eaves Undergraduate Excellence Fund in Mathematics.