The Mathematics of Chip Firing
Caroline Klivans, Ph.D.
Brown University
I will give an introduction to chip-firing processes, highlighting both classical results and recent advances. Chip-firing processes are discrete dynamical systems. A commodity (chips, sand, dollars) is exchanged between sites of a network according to simple local rules. Although governed by local rules, the long-term global behavior of the system reveals unexpected properties. I will not assume any familiarity with chip-firing and will tour the area primarily through pictures.
Caroline J. Klivans received a B.A. degree in mathematics from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from MIT. Currently, she is an Associate Professor in the Division of Applied Mathematics at Brown University. She is also an Associate Director of ICERM (Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics). Before coming to Brown she held positions at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Cornell and the University of Chicago. Her research is in algebraic, geometric and topological combinatorics.
