Michael Steele Department of Statistics, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Title: Probability theory of minimal spanning trees.
Given a graph with weights assigned to the edges, the minimal spanning tree is the subgraph with least total edge weight such that one can go from any vertex to any other vertex along the edges of the subgraph. Such graphs occur throughout the theory of algorithms and the theory of combinatorial optimization. This talk will survey some of the many engaging result that are known about such subgraph when the edge weights are determined by a probability model.
