CARMA DISCRETE MATHEMATICS SEMINAR Speaker: Dr Michael Coons, CARMA, The University of Newcastle Title: Minimal growth of some structured $\pm 1$-sequences Location: Room V205, Mathematics Building (Callaghan Campus) The University of Newcastle Time and Date: 3:00 pm, Wed, 16th Mar 2016 Abstract: In this talk, I will outline my interest in, and results towards, the Erdős Discrepancy Problem (EDP). I came about this problem as a PhD student sometime around 2007. At the time, many of the best number theorists in the world thought that this problem would outlast the Riemann hypothesis. I had run into some interesting examples of some structured sequences with very small growth, and in some of my early talks, I outlined a way one might be able to attack the EDP. As it turns out, the solution reflected quite a bit of what I had guessed. And I say 'guessed' because I was so young and naïve that my guess was nowhere near informed enough to actually have the experience behind it to call it a conjecture. In this talk, I will go into what I was thinking and provide proof sketches of what turn out to be the extremal examples of EDP. [Permanent link]