We will begin with a brief overview of different axiomatizations of matroids and intersection theory on toric varieties. We will then delve deeper into the combinatorics of matroids and talk about the characteristic polynomial, Rota's conjecture, Weisner's theorem, and the balancing condition. Finally, we will sketch June Huh's proof of Rota's conjecture using the tools listed above. The talk should be accessible to all graduate students.

Zoom link: https://umich.zoom.us/j/95088797965
Password: cookies Speaker(s): Shelby Cox