Title:  Approximation algorithms

                   Michael Langberg
   Center for the Mathematics of Information
       California Institute of Technology


Abstract: This is the first out of a series of four talks that will
address the field of approximation algorithms. In this talk I will
give a short introductory, present a very elegant algorithm for the
Max-Cut problem based on semidefinite programming, and discuss the
notion of "optimality" in the context of approximation algorithms.