‘A Surreptitious Sequence: The Catalan Numbers’

Name: Men's Tennis vs Big Red Invite - Hosted by | Fri. 4p-9p | Sat. 8:30a-6p | Sun. 8:30a-2p
Start: 2026-10-02T00:00:00-04:00
End: 2026-10-03T23:59:59-04:00
Location: Denison University

March 23, 2017 7:30pm - 9:00pm

The Gordon Lecture Series presents a discussion about the Catalan numbers.

Notice: this information is for a past event.

Location:	Burton D. Morgan Center - Lecture Hall
Ticket Info:	Free
Questions:	Dee Ghiloni Academic Administrative Assistant, Computer Science ghiloni@denison.edu 740-587-6259
Sponsor(s):	Mathematics Computer Science Gordon Lecture

The Gordon Lecture Series welcomes Alissa Crans, professor of mathematics at Loyola Marymount University, presenting “A Surreptitious Sequence: The Catalan Numbers.”

Many of us may be familiar with famous sequences of numbers such as the odd numbers 1, 3, 5, 7,…; perfect squares 1, 4, 9, 16, 25,…; the Fibonacci sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8,…; or the triangular numbers 1, 3, 6, 10, 15,… But what about the sequence 1, 1, 2, 5, 14,…? First described by Euler in the 1700s and made famous by Belgian mathematician Eugene Catalan 100 years later, these “Catalan numbers” take on a variety of different guises as they provide the solution to numerous problems throughout mathematics.