A Circle of Ideas: How the Round Sphere Crisscrosses Mathematics, From Geometry to Arithmetic to Chaos

One would think that the humble sphere, which has been studied for as long as humankind has looked upon the heavens, has already revealed all its secrets. And yet, it is the subject of active research from areas as far apart as number theory and dynamical systems. In this lecture, Alex Kontorovich will describe some of these connections, both ancient and modern. He will also showcase how mathematics is not a random collection of disjointed facts (as often learned in school), but rather numerous sweeping landscapes, all deeply interconnected and influencing each others’ development.

Webinar Schedule
3:45 – 4:00 pm ET Webinar waiting room opens
4:00 – 5:00 pm ET Talk + Q&A

Alex Kontorovich is the 2020–2021 Distinguished Professor for the Public Dissemination of Mathematics at the National Museum of Mathematics and Professor of Mathematics at Rutgers University. Kontorovich received his BA from Princeton and Ph.D. from Columbia, after which he taught at Brown, Stony Brook, and Yale before moving to Rutgers. In 2013, he received the American Mathematical Society’s Levi L. Conant Prize for mathematical exposition. Kontorovich’s research has received numerous honors, including an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, a Simons Foundation Fellowship, an NSF CAREER award, and a von Neumann Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In 2017, Kontorovich became a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and was elected Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. He currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of Quanta Magazine and as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Experimental Mathematics.