Return to Colloquia & Seminar listing
Flexibility and the Steiner ratio conjecture
Geometry/Topology| Speaker: | David Kirszenblat, University of Melbourne |
| Location: | 2112 MSB |
| Start time: | Tue, Mar 18 2014, 3:10PM |
Steiner trees are minimal networks with applications in the design of communication and transportation networks as well as microchips. The Steiner ratio is a measure for the performance of a Steiner minimal tree compared with that of a minimum spanning tree. In 1968, Gilbert and Pollak gave a conjecture for the lower bound for the Steiner ratio. In this talk, I will briefly describe the history of the Euclidean Steiner tree problem as well as some previous approaches towards verifying the ratio conjecture. I will then provide an overview of the ideas used to tackle the eight point case.