From e861f19887cb384bb378b643751a37ca38ae81cc Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Brennan Taylor <taylor.brennan@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2010 12:34:34 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] Adding Elyot talk

---
 events.xml | 38 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 38 insertions(+)

diff --git a/events.xml b/events.xml
index 91f468d..0ee3bdd 100644
--- a/events.xml
+++ b/events.xml
@@ -4,6 +4,44 @@
 <eventdefs>
 
 <!-- Spring 2010 -->
+
+<eventitem date="2010-07-20" time="04:30 PM" room="MC2066" title="The Incompressibility Method">
+<short>
+In this talk, we shall explore the incompressibility method---an interesting and
+extremely powerful framework for determining the average-case runtime of
+algorithms.  Within the right background knowledge, the heapsort question can be
+answered with an elegant 3-line proof.
+</short>
+<abstract>
+<p>Heapsort. It runs in $\Theta(n \log n)$ time in the worst case, and in $O(n)$
+    time in the best case.  Do you think that heapsort runs faster than $O(n
+    \log n)$ time on average?  Could it be possible that on most inputs,
+    heapsort runs in $O(n)$ time, running more slowly only on a small fraction
+    of inputs?</p>
+<p>Most students would say no. It "feels" intuitively obvious that heapsort
+    should take the full $n \log n$ steps on most inputs.  However, proving this
+    rigourously with probabilistic arguments turns out to be very difficult.
+    Average case analysis of algorithms is one of those icky subjects that most
+    students don't want to touch with a ten foot pole; why should it be so
+    difficult if it is so intuitively obvious?</p>
+<p>In this talk, we shall explore the incompressibility method---an interesting
+    and extremely powerful framework for determining the average-case runtime of
+    algorithms.  Within the right background knowledge, the heapsort question
+    can be answered with an elegant 3-line proof.</p>
+<p>The crucial fact is that an overwhelmingly large fraction of randomly
+    generated objects are incompressible. We can show that the inputs to
+    heapsort that run quickly correspond to inputs that can be compressed,
+    thereby proving that heapsort can't run quickly on average.  Of course,
+    "compressible" is something that must be rigourously defined, and for this
+    we turn to the fascinating theory of Kolmogorov complexity.</p>
+<p>In this talk, we'll briefly discuss the proof of the incompressibility
+    theorem and then see a number of applications.  We won't dwell too much on
+    gruesome mathemtical details.  No specific background is required, but
+    knowledge of some of the topics in CS240 will be helpful in understanding
+    some of the applications.</p>
+</abstract>
+</eventitem>
+
 <eventitem date="2010-07-13" time="04:30 PM" room="MC2066" title="Halftoning and Digital Art">
     <short><p>Edgar Bering will be giving a talk titled: Halftoning and Digital Art</p></short>
     <abstract><p>Halftoning is the process of simulating a continuous tone image