Speaker: Paul Monsky

Title: Polynomials, power series and p-fractals

Abstract: In this talk I'll introduce some apparently simple questions about polynomials and power series for which no answer is known. However, when the coefficients of the polynomials or power series are in a finite field, the questions lead to mysterious real-valued functions, and there is computer evidence that these functions have self-similarity properties that completely characterize them. In some cases this can actually be proven. Much of this is joint work with Teixeira.