Monday, April 29, 2024, 11:30 AM – 1 PM EDT

Ron Gould

Goodrich C. White Professor Emeritus

“Math and Marriage – Don't Call the Lawyers Yet”

Pairings of objects from various sets has many applications. For example, pairing applicants with jobs, pairing representatives with districts, pairing wines with foods, and especially pairing people with each other.   This idea of pairing has naturally come to be called the marriage problem in mathematics.   In this talk I will look at several special cases of the general pairing problem, including optimal pairings from several different points of view.   I will limit the mathematics as much as possible and maximize the jokes as much as possible.   After all, there is no limit to the number of strange case marriage jokes available.