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University of California - Irvine

Title: Exploring Symmetry: A Voyage into the Mathematical World of Escher?s Art and Sudoku Puzzles

Director:

  • Alessandra Pantano

Email:

Dates of Program: August 6 ? September 14, 2012

Summary:
This program seeks to lead five UCI undergraduate students in an intensive 6-week summer research in the field of Group Theory. In the first project, students will be engaged on a mathematical exploration of the Escher?s drawings; in particular, they will determine generators and relations for the symmetry group underlying a given drawing and compute its signature (in the sense of Conway). In the second project, students will investigate symmetry groups of lower dimensional Sudoku grids and Sudoku variants, and formulate conjectures regarding the minimum number of clues in a uniquely solvable Sudoku puzzle.

Student Researchers Supported by MAA:

  • Manuel Dominguez
  • Emmanuel Ubongen Galang
  • Gustavo Reyes
  • Natalie Rustria
  • George Villegas Vazquez

Program Contact:

Bill Hawkins
MAA SUMMA
bhawkins@maa.org
202-319-8473