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About

I am a mathematician currently working in industry.

I studied mathematics at Princeton University and the University of British Columbia, and spent one year at Oxford and École Polytechnique. My research lies in combinatorics, random matrix theory and number theory.  See Research, or the Conferences for more details.

Contact Information

You can reach me at naslund.math [at] gmail [dot] com

Selected Publications

• • Exponential bounds for the Erdős-Ginzburg-Ziv constant.
    Journal of  Combinatorial Theory Series A 174, 105185, 19 pp, 2020 (MR4078996)
    arXiv": https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.04942

  • The partition rank of a tensor and k-right corners in F_q^n.
    Status: Journal of Combinatorial Theory Series A 174, 105190, 25 pp, 2020 (MR4078997)
    arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.04475

  • On cap sets and the group-theoretic approach to matrix multiplication. with Jonah Blasiak, Tom Church, Henry Cohn, Joshua A. Grochow, William F. Sawin and Chris Umans.
    Status: Discrete Analysis , 2017:3, 2017 (MR3631613)
    arXiv/PDF: https://arxiv.org/abs/1605.06702

  • Upper bounds for sunflower-free sets.  with William F. Sawin.
    Status: Forum Mathematics Sigma, Vol. 5, e15, 2017 (MR3668469)
    arXiv/PDF: http://arxiv.org/abs/1606.09575

Miscellaneous

Notes

• Performing SVD for image compression on the Princeton Allosaurus.
  In this note we look at an 8 megapixel image of an Allosaurus, and how the image looks after compressing by selecting 1, 10, 25, 50, 100, and 200 of the largest singular values.

• Deriving special relativity using linear algebra.
  "Einstein's second postulate states that light is an eigenvector of the Lorentz transform."

• When to Stop in the Chow-Robbins Game?
  Consider the game where I flip a coin until you tell me to stop, and then I pay you #Heads/#Flips. What is the expected value of this game?

Math Overflow

I frequently participate on Math Stack Exchange, and Math Overflow. Take a look at some of my favorite answers I have written on each of the sites

• MSE 1

• MSE 2

• MSE 3

• MSE 4

• MO 1

• MO 2

• MO 3.

Interviews

As undergraduate, I interviewed two alumni for the UBC Mathematics Newsletter.  

• For the 2010 UBC Mathematics Newsletter, I interviewed David Cheriton, and the transcribed interview can be found here. 

• For the 2011 UBC Mathematics Newsletter, I interviewed Richard Lee, and the transcribed interview can be found here.