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Faculty of Science

Magic and science [talk]

12:20-12:50 Evolutionary biology and environmental sciences, by Prof. Jordi Bascompte

(English) 
[for everyone] 
{in Y15G60 near Lichthof

playing cards and a matrix

I will illustrate the fascinating relationships between magic and science. I will start by performing a magic trick. At odds with all tradition in magic, I will promise to reveal its method, as this is as beautiful as the effect itself. First, though, I will briefly mention three apparently unrelated fields: ciphers, DNA sequencing, and robotic vision. I will proceed by reveling the method of my trick, which to the surprise of the audience will introduce a couple of very powerful ideas from math: de Bruijn sequences and graph theory, which also underly my previous three applications.