Eric Schmutz
University of Delaware and Drexel University
Title: Central limit theorems in combinatorics.
Many combinatorial structures are built up from smaller, prime-like objects
in a unique way. The well-known Erdos-Kac theorem (a central limit theorem, of sorts, for the number of prime factors that a random integer has) now has many combinatorial and algebraic analogues. After surveying some of these analogues, I will describe a probabilistic method that has been used in many of the proofs. Related open problems will be discussed.
