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Probability and Combinatorics

Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - 4:00pm

Bruce Sagan

Michigan State and Rutgers

Location

University of Pennsylvania

DRL 4N30

It is well known that the Catalan numbers count triangulations of a polygon. If one colors the vertices of the polygon and considers triangulations which are proper (in a sense similar to that of proper colorings in Graph Theory) then James Propp conjectured similar enumeration formulas. We prove Propp's conjectures and also discuss how one can move from one proper partition to another by a sequence of moves called flips.