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Lorenzo Traldi, Metzgar Professor of Mathematics, will speak on “Funny Dice and Electoral Paradoxes” noon Wednesday in Pardee Hall room 227.
The event is sponsored by the Mathematical Adventures And Diversions Series. Free lunch will be provided.
MAAD is a series of talks on mathematical topics and applications that are often not encountered in mathematics courses. They are open to the Lafayette community and assume no special mathematical preparation on the part of the audience.
The talk description: “A ‘funny die’ is an ordinary cubical die marked with numbers between 1 and 6 spots on each face. Two funny dice compete in a simple game: Both are thrown, and whichever shows a larger number wins that throw. We imagine the game being played repeatedly and ask: Which of the two dice would we expect to be stronger — that is, to win more throws over the long run? For instance, a die marked (4,4,4,4,4,4) is clearly stronger than a die marked (3,3,3,3,3,3). Strangely enough, though, both of them tie with a die marked (1,1,1,6,6,6). We’ll discuss some surprising results about competing funny dice, and a quick summary of the analogy between funny dice and multi-candidate elections.”
Traldi, who joined the faculty in 1980, has worked with many Lafayette students on independent studies, honors theses, and EXCEL Scholars research projects. He has also worked with undergraduates from other colleges doing mathematics research at Lafayette through the National Science Foundation’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program.
Mathematics is such a wide field that “it’s necessary for ambitious math students to study outside classes through independent study and honors coursework,” he says. “EXCEL and REU fit in with that nicely.”
The first student to do an honors thesis with Traldi was Dan King ’87, now a mathematics professor at Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, N.Y.
“I didn’t take a course with Lorenzo until my junior year, because I heard he was a very challenging teacher,” says King. “I took advanced calculus with him. It was fantastic. The classroom environment was serious, but he brought levity and a sense of humor to the course that put everyone at ease.”
King says Traldi deepened his love for mathematics and encouraged his interest in becoming a professor.
“He even helped me study for my doctoral qualifying exam by rattling off solutions to problems that stumped me,” he notes.
Traldi specializes in topology, the field that includes geometry. He has worked on the theory and applications of discrete structures, which are related to network reliability analysis.
“Reliability theory is an interdisciplinary field involving mathematicians, computer scientists, engineers, statisticians, and management scientists, with applications not only in computer science, but also management science for optimal allocation of resources,” he says.