Thomas Zaslavsky's Home Page

Course (Spring 2010)

Continuation of Fall-Spring-Summer Math 581: Topics in Graph Theory:
Graphs, Gain Graphs, and Geometry (a.k.a. Signed Graphs and their Friends)

Course home page.

Past Courses

Fall 2009: Math 330: Number Systems

Course home page (Section 1).

Thomas Zaslavsky

Professor
Ph.D., 1974, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
At Binghamton since 1985

Areas of interest: Combinatorics, graph theory
Summary of research interests
Math Reviews list of published papers. (Institutional subscription to MathSciNet is needed for viewing.)

E-mail: zaslav@math.binghamton.edu

Phone: (607)-777-2201

Fax: (607)-777-2450

Office: LN 2231
Office hours:
Courses:
Ph. D. Students:
- Lucas Rusnak, Spring, 2010
  Thesis: Oriented Hypergraphs
- Garry Bowlin, Summer, 2009
  Thesis: Maximum Frustration of Bipartite Signed Graphs
- Rigoberto Florez, Summer, 2005
  Thesis: Four Studies in the Geometry of Biased Graphs
- Lori Koban, Summer, 2004
  Thesis: Two Generalizations of Biased Graph Theory: Circuit Signatures and Modular Triples of Matroids, and Biased Expansions of Biased Graphs
- Steven Tedford, Spring, 2002
  Thesis: A Characterization of the Mixed Branching Greedoid
- Daniel Slilaty, Summer, 2000
  Thesis: Orientations of Biased Graphs and Their Matroids
- Steve Pagano, Spring, 1998
  Thesis: Separability and Representability of Bias Matroids of Signed Graphs

Quotations of the Month

Proclaim Liberty throughout all the Land
unto all the Inhabitants Thereof

The Liberty Bell
(from Leviticus 25:10)

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Benjamin Franklin, 1755

"The attention of an appreciative public is called to the proper spelling of the name -B-i-n-g-h-a-m-t-o-n- because certain illiterate and evil disposed persons, notably the inhabitants of Elmira, tantalize and vex the souls of ardent Binghamtonians by wantonly interpolating the letter 'p' ..."

— From an early history of Binghamton, as posted at the Cyber Cafe West, January, 2010.

To the Editor:

By means of two legal fictions, that corporations are people and money is speech, the Roberts court has turned America from a democracy to a plutocracy.

— Norman N. Holland, in "Letters: Corporate Spending in Our Elections", The New York Times, Jan. 23, 2010

To the Editor:

Why is everyone up in arms about the recent Supreme Court decision allowing corporations unfettered monetary access to the American election process? To me this is a golden opportunity, as now our elected officials can sell corporate naming rights to their seats.

The junior senator from North Carolina? He or she is now the Bank of America senator. The senior senator from Alaska could be the Exxon senator.

The politicians may never have to fund-raise again! Think of all the time that will save to actually legislate.

— Randy Levinson, in "Letters: Corporate Spending in Our Elections", The New York Times, Jan. 23, 2010

Economics 101 (Rich People, Pay Heed!)

Tax exemptions for privileged groups brought high taxes on industry and agriculture, and emigration increased.

-- Article on Charles II of Spain, The Columbia Encyclopedia, 5th ed., 1993.

As bankers demanded that new regulation should not stifle innovation, a clearly irritated Mr Volcker said that the biggest innovation in the industry over the past 20 years had been the cash machine. He went on to attack the rise of complex products such as credit default swaps (CDS).

"I wish someone would give me one shred of neutral evidence that financial innovation has led to economic growth -- one shred of evidence."

-- Paul Volcker, Federal Reserve chairman 1979-1987. "'Wake up, gentlemen', world's top bankers warned by former Fed chairman Volcker", The Times (London), December 9, 2009.

...

Meanwhile, George Soros argued that CDS should be banned. The billionaire investor likened the widely traded securities to buying life assurance and then giving someone a licence to shoot the insured person.

"They really are a toxic market," he said. "Credit default swaps give you a chance to bear-raid bonds. And bear raids certainly can work."

— "'Wake up, gentlemen', world's top bankers warned by former Fed chairman Volcker", The Times (London), December 9, 2009.

Past quotations of the month.

Research

My Publications and So Forth
A list of published and selected unpublished works.
A list arranged by topics.

My Research Interests
Combinatorics, especially matroids, arrangements of hyperplanes, and the topic to which I devote most of my attention, signed graphs and their relatives: see
The Home Page of Signed, Gain, and Biased Graphs
at which you will find the Mathematical Bibliography, the Glossary, and a glacially growing list of research problems.
And see the New York Times.

Other Places, On and Off Site

Fraktur (German) letters, printed and handwritten forms, from Sheila MacIntyre and Edith Witte, German-English Mathematical Vocabulary, Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh and London, 1956; second ed. 1966. Higher resolution (2 MB).

Combinatorics Seminar

Combinatorics News
- Gian-Carlo Rota (Our Hero!)
- eXtreme Combinatorics: Design theory schedules the XFL season. (February 3, 2001.)
- A Hat Problem: It sounds like a parlor game -- but it's mathematical coding theory. (April 10, 2001.)
- Our professors have their own number.
- The End of a Reign in Graph Theory: W.T. Tutte Dies, May 2, 2002.
- Archimedes did combinatorics 2200 years ago! Read all about it!
- Sphere packing: Solved at last? or, What is a proof, really?
- A statistical analysis of The New Yorker's fiction. (Not combinatorics, but it's an unusual senior thesis!)
- Obituary of Frank Harary, who liked to be called "Mr. Graph Theory".
- A book on probability that sounds like fascinating fun, full of anecdotes and math: CHANCES ARE... Adventures in Probability, by Michael Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan (New York Times review).
- The New York Times discovers signed graphs! Actually, it's the math column by Steven Strogatz (Cornell) called "The Enemy of My Enemy".

Breaking Math News
- Was Pythagoras really a mathematician at all? Read the controversy in the London Review of Books: "Other Lives", by M.F. Burnyeat.

African Mathematics, Multicultural Math, and Math Education
- A small and selective bibliography, classified by topic, concentrating on the works of Claudia Zaslavsky.
- A moderately complete chronological bibliography of the works of Claudia Zaslavsky.
- A brief life of Claudia Zaslavsky.

Historical
- N.E. Discrete Mathematics Day at Binghamton (Oct. 10, 2003): Program
- Binghamton meeting of the A.M.S. (Oct. 11-12, 2003): Program of the Special Session on Dowling Lattices

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