JOINT MATH-CS Colloquium: Two uses of topology in computing.
Time and place
1 PM on Tuesday, February 14th, 2012;
Ralph Kopperman (CCNY)
Abstract
1) The computer screen looks like a rectangle in the plane, but in fact it consists of a finite number of addressable points. We discuss how this issue is resolved, resulting in a topologically defined adjacency of points which can be used in algorithms.
2) We relate the partially defined objects that arise in computing (say, knowing many decimal places of a number) to generalized ideas of "distance" in which the distance from a point to itself may not be 0.
