Shuffling Math – Feb 21

Upon opening a new deck of cards, have you ever attempted a so-called perfect shuffle? A perfect shuffle splits a deck into two equal stacks, and then perfectly interlaces the cards from the two stacks. (Eight successive perfect shuffles puts the cards back into their original, fresh-out-of-the-pack order!) Only experienced card handlers can reliably perform even a single perfect shuffle, and yet the mathematics behind perfect shuffles has a rich history, including everything from mathematical card tricks to sophisticated research.

Our speaker is Dr. Cornelia Van Cott, Professor of Mathematics at the University of San Francisco. As a geometic toplogist, she studies knots, surfaces, and the interplay between 3- and 4-dimensional objects.