Student Combinatorics Seminar

The intention of this talk is a very brief introduction to tropical geometry, focused on exploring the tropicalization of matroids and the Grassmannian. We will begin by reviewing several definitions of matroids and some key matroid examples. We will then move on to valuations and defining tropicalization for polynomials and matroids and I will mention some cool facts about tropical hypersurfaces. Lastly, we will describe the tropical Grassmannian Gr(2,m) as parameterizing some familiar combinatorial objects. Speaker(s): Shelby Cox (UM)