Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Is Math Real? How Simple Questions Lead Us To Mathematics' Deepest Truths, Eugenia Cheng

Dalrymple Lecture Series

Where does math come from: from rules in a textbook? From logic and deduction? Not quite. In this talk Eugenia Cheng will argue that math comes from human curiosity - most importantly, from asking questions. Many people are discouraged from asking these questions in school, thinking they’re too simple to be taken seriously, or being told that their questions are stupid. But often, these simple-sounding questions lead to wondrous mathematical revelations. Dr Cheng will take us on a journey of discovery starting with questions like "Why does 2x3 = 3x2?" and "What's the point of maths?", leading us into research-level …

Why Does Ramanujan, The Man Who Knew Infinity, Matter?, Ken Ono

Dalrymple Lecture Series

Dr. Ken Ono is the Thomas Jefferson Professor of Mathematics at the University of Virginia, the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Mathematics at Emory University, and the vice president of the American Mathematical Society.He is an associate producer of the film The Man Who Knew Infinity starring Dev Patel and Jeremy Irons about Srinivasa Ramanujan, a self-trained two-time college dropout who left behind three notebooks filled with equations that mathematicians are still trying to figure out today. Ramanujan claimed that his ideas came to him as visions from an Indian goddess. This lecture is about why Ramanujan matters. The answers …

Mathemagics, Arthur Benjamin

Dalrymple Lecture Series

Dr. Arthur Benjamin is the Smallwood Family Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California. He is also a professional magician, and in his entertaining and fast-paced performance, Dr. Benjamin will demonstrate how to mentally add and multiply numbers faster than a calculator, how to figure out the day of the week of any date in history, and other amazing feats of mind.

Algebraic Complexity Theory, Jerzy Weyman

Dalrymple Lecture Series

I will discuss the basic notions related to the complexity theory. The classes of P and NP problems will be defined, with examples given. Besides discussing the statements of the problems, I will talk about the effectiveness of algorithms used in linear algebra (multiplying matrices and solving the systems of linear equations). No previous knowledge of complexity theory will be assumed, however some knowledge of linear algebra (matrices and their multiplication) will be needed.

Primes And Zeros: A Million Dollar Mystery, Brian Conrey

Dalrymple Lecture Series

A prime number is an integer greater than one whose only positive divisors are 1 and itself. In 1859 G. F. B. Riemann proposed a way to understand how the prime numbers are distributed among the natural numbers. More than 150 years later mathematicians still have not proven Riemann's Hypothesis. The stature of this problem has continued to rise so that today it is widely regarded as the most important unsolved problem in all of mathematics. In this talk I will describe some of the colorful history that surrounds this question.

Generic Special Objects, Sławomir Solecki

Dalrymple Lecture Series

I will talk about mathematical objects that have two seemingly contradictory attributes. On the one hand, they are generic within a given class, in the sense that if most objects within the class have a property, then our object has it as well. So generic objects are common. On the other hand, they are very special if they exist, for example, there is always, in essence, at most one such object within a given class. Generic objects show up in various areas of mathematics, for example, in topology, geometry, and analysis. They tend to have astonishing mathematical features. Can you …

Geometry, Greed, Games, And 'Roids, James Oxley

Dalrymple Lecture Series

A three-legged stool doesn’t wobble. But four-legged stools often teeter because the tips of their legs don’t lie in the same plane.

This phenomenon of dependent sets, first theorized 75 years ago, is the focus of the 16th Dalrymple Lecture in Mathematics, set for 5:30 p.m. Friday (May 21) at the University of Mississippi. James Oxley, who holds an alumni professorship at Louisiana State University, is to deliver the address, which is free and open to the public in the Student Union Ballroom.

“There is some beautiful and intriguing mathematics that arises from some natural problems in geometry and network …

Random Graphs: From Paul Erdős To The Internet, Michał Karoński

Dalrymple Lecture Series

Paul Erdős, one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century, was a champion of applications of probabilistic methods in many areas of mathematics, such as a graph theory, combinatorics and number theory. He also, almost fifty years ago, jointly with another great Hungarian mathematician Alfred Rényi, laid out foundation of the theory of random graphs: the theory which studies how large and complex systems evolve when randomness of the relations between their elements is incurred. In my talk I will sketch the long journey of this theory from the pioneering Erdős era to modern attempts to model properties of …