Professor Leonard Soicher Inaugural Lecture

'Combinatorial design theory is not just for Sudoku'

Leonard Soicher, Professor of Mathematics

A completed Sudoku puzzle is a type of combinatorial design, and people who enjoy Sudoku are in fact doing some combinatorial design theory. This theory is much wider, however, with strong connections to statistics, graph theory, finite geometry and group theory. In this lecture I will introduce some aspects of combinatorial design theory, including open research problems which can be understood, and perhaps even solved, by someone who enjoys Sudoku puzzles.

Leonard Soicher joined Queen Mary in 1987 as a Mathematician Programmer, becoming a Lecturer, then Reader, and in 2007 a Professor of Mathematics. His research interests include combinatorial design theory, algebraic graph theory, group theory and computation. In addition to his research publications, he is the author of the GAP packages GRAPE for graphs and DESIGN for block designs.

Date: 26 November 2009

Time: 6.30pm

Venue: Skeel Lecture Theatre, People’s Palace, Mile End

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