Rowlee Lecture - Bhargav Bhatt
On Friday March 28th, at 4 pm, Bhargav Bhatt will give this year’s Rowlee Lecture. There will also be a conference on Commutative Algebra in Mixed Characteristic attached to the lecture, which will be held on Saturday, March 29th. All are welcome, though we ask those planning to attend the conference to please register here. No registration necessary to attend the lecture, just show up!
The Howard Rowlee Lecture is an annual event that seeks to bring internationally acclaimed scholars in the mathematical sciences to UNL to promote public understanding of mathematical research and to stimulate the environment for mathematics research at UNL. This is a general audience talk, with no advanced mathematical background assumed. This year’s speaker is Bhargav Bhatt, Fernholz Joint Professor at Institute for Advanced Study and Princeton. Bhargav's many accolades include the Infosys Prize, a Packard Fellowship, the Nemmers Prize, and a plenary address at the International Congress of Mathematicians.
There will be a reception with the speaker at 3pm in Avery 348, and the talk will take place at 4pm in Avery 115. The title and abstract follow below.
Title: The p-adic numbers: past and present
Abstract: For each prime number p, there is a number system — the p-adic number system — rather analogous to the standard (real) number system. This system was discovered in the late 1800s and has played a vital role in many areas of mathematics. The past 15 years have witnessed some major breakthroughs in our understanding of geometries built from this number system; this has had downstream effects, such as the solution of longstanding problems across a variety of fields. In this talk, I will first explain what the p-adic number system is and then give a high-level overview of some of the new ideas that led to the recent developments.