Institute For Advanced Study Hosts Annual Program For Women And Mathematics
Mathematicians to Study Zeta Functions and their Applications
Fifty-three women mathematicians from throughout the United States will gather at the Institute for Advanced Study this May for the Program for Women and Mathematics. The 11-day residential program, sponsored by the Institute and Princeton University, will be held from May 15 to May 26, marking its 13th year on the Institute campus.
Designed to encourage women to pursue careers in mathematics by emphasizing learning and research, mentoring and peer relations, the program is being organized by Sun-Yung Alice Chang of Princeton University; Antonella Grassi of the University of Pennsylvania; Chuu-Lian Terng of the University of California, Irvine; Audrey Terras of the University of California, San Diego; and Karen Uhlenbeck of The University of Texas at Austin. Women and Mathematics is a joint program of the Institute for Advanced Study and Princeton University.
The research topic for 2006 is Zeta Functions. These are extremely important special functions of mathematics and physics that are intimately related to the prime number theorem. Primes are whole numbers that can only be divided evenly by themselves and one. Because large prime numbers are important for cryptography and the security of internet transactions, many people (including those at the National Security Administration or those involved with the TV show Numb3rs) are interested in the mysteries of zeta functions.
Bernhard Riemann showed in the late 1850s how to make sense of zeta at complex numbers and he stated the famous Riemann hypothesis concerning the location of the points in the complex plane where the zeta function vanishes. The Clay Institute is offering $1 million to anyone who proves the Riemann hypothesis. Institute Professor Enrico Bombieri offers the following on the Clay Institute website: "The failure of the Riemann hypothesis would create havoc in the distribution of prime numbers. This fact alone singles out the Riemann hypothesis as the main open question of prime number theory."
Professors Uhlenbeck and Terng, who have been involved in the program since its inception in 1994, will again lead the program, which will consider various zeta functions that arise in number theory, algebraic geometry, differential geometry and graph theory.
Participants will include undergraduate and graduate students as well as postdoctoral scholars and senior researchers. A variety of activities, both formal and informal, will be offered to encourage interaction among participants. In addition to undergraduate and graduate level lecture courses, there are research seminars, problem and review sessions, colloquia and Women-in-Science seminars. A day of activities on the Princeton University campus, including lectures and a dinner, is planned for Friday, May 19.
Faculty members for the program include Guiliana Davidoff and Margaret Robinson, both of Mount Holyoke College, and Kate Okikiolu and Audrey Terras of the University of California - San Diego (UCSD). Teaching assistants will be Ruth Gornet of the University of Texas at Arlington, Amanda Folsom of the University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA), Amanda Beeson of UCSD, Brooke Feigon of UCLA and Cornelia Yuen of the University of Michigan.
Among those serving on the Organizing Committee are Katherine Bold and Ingrid Daubechies of Princeton University, Nancy Hingston of The College of New Jersey, Rhonda Hughes and Lisa Traynor of Bryn Mawr College, Robert MacPherson of the Institute�s School of Mathematics, Gail Ratcliff of East Carolina University, Cynthia Diane Rudin of the NYU Center for Neural Science and Janet Talvacchia of Swarthmore College.
Support for the program has been provided by the National Science Foundation and The Starr Foundation.
For information, visit http://www.ias.edu/math/womensprogram, or call 609-734-8118.