Jan Draisma

Professor of Mathematics

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Recreational


News

April 2026: I was a guest in Fokus Forschung, a series of interviews about the sciences. Lisa Kattner and I discussed the necessity of curiosity-driven math on the one hand, and of an open eye for applications on the other hand. After that, I illustrated what I do by explaining the notion of Euclidean distance degree for a general audience. You can find a recording of my interview on youtube. It's mostly without image, but in the second half there are two slides explaining the ED degree.

Spring 2026: After a break, we are re-starting the Intercity Seminar.

Fall 2025: My group's new seminar webpage is up.

March 2-March 20, 2026: Bernoulli programme on algebraic aspects of metric and integral geometry. We welcome applications for the school (March 9-13) and registrations for the converence (March 16-20).

3 November 2025: Schläfli lecture by Kathlén Kohn.

Teaching

Discrete Mathematics

This course is taught for the first time in the Fall of 2006, by Benne de Weger and myself. See also the course information. I try to put my notes here:
  1. The real projective plane
  2. Projective spaces and group actions
  3. The cross ratio and some block designs
  4. Summary and some exercises
  5. Solutions to typical exercises
I found a very funny lecture on the history of design theory, a bit of which we have seen through projective spaces. It can be found here. A lot on design theory (more serious stuff) can be found here.