In his talk Donald Sheehy will discuss a classic result of Tutte from 1963 that shows an elegant connection between graph theory, physics, geometry, and linear algebra. Tutte addressed the problem of how to draw a planar graph (a collection of vertices and edges that can be drawn without crossing edges in the plane) so that every edge is a straight line and the resulting faces are all convex polygons.

With the advantage of hindsight, he will also show how this result has influenced many modern ideas in graph theory and graph drawing. Despite covering a lot of ground, the talk should be widely accessible.

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