Speaking to students and faculty in a packed-to-the-brim lecture hall, mathematician Jordan Ellenberg offered the 24th annual Leonard C. Sulski Memorial Lecture on April 19 at the College of the Holy Cross.
Ellenberg, who is the John D. MacArthur Professor of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin, explored the interplay of the lottery and how this phenomenon relates to the mathematical fields of probability, geometry and combinatorics in his lecture titled “How to use math to get rich in the lottery (*will not actually help you get rich in the lottery).”
The annual lecture, co-sponsored by the mathematics and computer science department in honor of Holy Cross mathematics professor Leonard C. Sulski, seeks out a speaker who is both an accomplished mathematician and an engaging lecturer. For Sharon Frechette, associate professor of mathematics and a member of the Sulski lecture organizing committee, inviting Ellenberg to speak was a no-brainer after she heard him give a version of this lecture at the Joint Mathematics Meeting in January 2015.