2 Day Workshop at BIRS — Alberta-Montana Combinatorics and Algorithms Day

May 21-22, 2020 will see the first Alberta-Montana Combinatorics and Algorithms Day hosted at the Banff International Research Station (BIRS). The event brings together faculty and students from three Alberta universities (in Calgary, Lethbridge, and Edmonton) and the University of Montana (Missoula). Combinatorics is the branch of mathematics concerned with finite sets: their properties, structures, and number. Studying the classic Rubik's Cube reveals the number of possible positions (it's 43,252,003,274,489,856,000). Understanding the cube's structure leads to efficient algorithms for solving it (an Algorithm is a sequence of well-defined instructions for solving a problem, answering a question, or even playing a game). In 2010, a group of researchers working with Google proved that every one of that staggering number of positions could be solved in no more than 20 moves.