# Kirk Lecture: The mathematics of Shuffling

 Speaker(s) Cheryl Praeger University of Western Australia Date 17 March 2020 – 16:00 to 17:00 Venue INI Seminar Room 1 Session Title Kirk Lecture: The mathematics of Shuffling Event [GRAW03] Interactions between group theory, number theory, combinatorics and geometry Abstract The crux of a card trick performed with a deck of cards usually depends on understanding how shuffles of the deck change the order of the cards. By understanding which permutations are possible, one knows if a given card may be brought into a certain position. The mathematics of shuffling a deck of 2n cards with two perfect shuffles'' was studied thoroughly by Diaconis, Graham and Kantor in 1983. I will report on our efforts to understand a generalisation of this problem, with a so-called "many handed dealer'' shuffling kn cards by cutting into k piles with n cards in each pile and using k! possible shuffles.

A conjecture of Medvedoff and Morrison suggests that all possible permutations of the deck of cards are achieved, as long as k is not 4 and n is not a power of k. We confirm this conjecture for three doubly infinite families of integers, including all (k, n) with k > n. We initiate a more general study of shuffle groups, which admit an arbitrary subgroup of shuffles. This is joint work with Carmen Amarra and Luke Morgan.
Presentation Files 28447_0.pdf