Department of Computer Science | Institute of Theoretical Computer Science | CADMO

Theory of Combinatorial Algorithms

Prof. Emo Welzl and Prof. Bernd Gärtner

Seminar Geometry: Combinatorics and Algorithms FS24 (263-4203-00L)

Bernd Gärtner, OAT Z15, lastname@inf.ethz.ch
Michael Hoffmann, OAT Z13.1, lastname@inf.ethz.ch
Patrick Schnider, OAT Z13.1, firstname.lastname@inf.ethz.ch

Contents

This seminar is held once a year and complements the course Geometry: Combinatorics & Algorithms. Students of the seminar will present original research papers, some classic and some of them very recent. The seminar is a good preparation for a master, diploma, or semester thesis in the area.

To attend the seminar, some background in (discrete and computational) geometry and in graphs and algorithms is required. Thus, previous participation in the course "Geometry: Combinatorics & Algorithms" is a prerequisite.

Topic and Papers

This year we focus on the work of Emo Welzl who retired earlier this year. (To be able to access some of the papers linked below, you may need to be within the ETH network, e.g., via VPN.)

Schedule

Each talk is 45min. plus 15min. discussion. Between two talks on the same day there is a short break.

Conditions

The seminar is held in English. Each talk is 45min. plus about 15min. discussion.
Every participant is expected to read, understand, and elaborate on a selected research paper. To this end, (s)he should give a 45-min. presentation about the paper. The process includes
  1. getting an overview of the related literature;
  2. understanding and working out the background/motivation: why and where are the questions addressed relevant?
  3. understanding the contents of the paper in all details;
  4. selecting parts suitable for the presentation;
  5. presenting the selected parts in such a way that an audience with some basic background in geometry and graph theory can easily understand and appreciate it.

For more details, please refer to our guidelines for seminar talks. A number of additional related documents from different authors (both in English and German) are linked to from here.

A successful participation in the seminar requires the following:

  1. a rehearsal talk, to be given in front of your supervisor at least one week prior to the plenary talk;
  2. a satisfactory plenary talk;
  3. attendance at all other talks.

Last modified: Mon Apr 8 9:44 CET 2024 by Michael Hoffmann. Valid HTML5