| | | Dr Valérie Berthé
~ Low Discrepancy and Aperiodic Order ~
Our first speaker was Valérie Berthé. She took as her starting point a question formulated by the Dutch mathematician, Robert Tijdeman in 1980 and known as The Chairman Assignment Problem. It begins, “Suppose k sates form a union and every year a union chairman has to be selected in such a way that at any time the accumulated number of chairmen from each state is proportional to its weight.” It then asks for a simple algorithm for a chairman assignment which guarantees a small discrepancy. The talk was effectively a presentation of a recent paper in which Valérie is a co-author. In person she could elaborate on the detail, provide supporting insights, and go over the basic background mathematics. It was an inspiring presentation from a masterful lecturer.
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