Richard P. Stanley Seminar in Combinatorics: My journey with the alternating sign matrix theorem

I will talk about the alternating sign matrix theorem and its proof from the point of view of my own experience with it: what led me to this problem, what I was thinking while working on it, and how I interpret the aftermath.  Key elements include round enumerations in combinatorics, bijective versus algebraic proofs, Kasteleyn’s theorem versus the Yang-Baxter equation, and factor exhaustion as a method to evaluate determinants.   I will also discuss the sequel, symmetry classes of alternating sign matrices.

For information about the Richard P. Stanley Seminar in Combinatorics, visit… https://math.mit.edu/combin/