Mahler Lectures — Melbourne
Name: | Mahler Lectures — Melbourne |
Calendar: | 1-day meetings & lectures |
When: | Thu, October 10, 2013, 11:30 pm - Fri, October 11, 2013, 6:30 am |
Description: |
BiographyAkshay Venkatesh received his PhD in 2002 from Princeton University and his undergraduate degree from The University of Western Australia. His research is in pure mathematics — specifically, in number theory and related areas. His research interests are in the fields of counting, equidistribution problems in automorphic forms and number theory, in particular representation theory, locally symmetric spaces and ergodic theory. In 2008 he won the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize. This annual prize is for outstanding contributions to areas of mathematics influenced by the genius Srinivasa Ramanujan.
Abstract: Spherical harmonics are eigenfunctions of the Laplacian on the sphere; they are also closely related to understanding how the group of rotations decomposes the space of L2 functions on the sphere. We can ask similar questions replacing the sphere by other “highly symmetric” spaces — in particular, G/H where G and H are Lie groups. I will explain some of the work on this question and how it is related to the Langlands program.
Abstract: How can we pack balls as tightly as possible? In other words: to squeeze as many balls as possible into a limited space, what's the best way of arranging the balls? It’s not hard to guess what the answer should be — but it’s very hard to be sure that it really is the answer! I'll tell the interesting story of this problem, going back to the astronomer Kepler, and ending almost four hundred years later with Thomas Hales. I will then talk about stacking 24-dimensional oranges: what this means, how it relates to the Voyager spacecraft, and the many things we don’t know beyond this. |
Location: | University of Melbourne Map |
URL: | http://www.austms.org.au/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=196 |
Created: | 12 Jul 2013 09:25 am UTC |
Modified: | 14 Aug 2013 10:03 pm UTC |
By: | rmoore |
Status: | Confirmed |