Barry Mazur Gerhard Gade University Professor, Harvard University Barry Mazur is a mathematician at Harvard University who has often taught courses in History of Science and Philosophy. His books include: Imagining Numbers (particularly the squareroot of minus fifteen) (Farrar Straus and Giroux); Prime Numbers and the Riemann Hypothesis, written with William Stein (Cambridge University Press) and he has edited with Apostolos Doxiadis the book of essays Circles Disturbed: The Interplay of Mathematics and Narrative (Princeton University Press). Participant In: The Beauty and Unity of Mathematics Saturday, December 1st, 2018 at 2:30pm Past Event Watch the video » Proof, in the form of step by step deduction, following the rules of logical reasoning, is the ultimate test of validity in mathematics. Some proofs, however, are so long or complex, or both, that they cannot be checked for errors by human experts. In response, a small but growing community of mathematicians, collaborating with computer… read more » Permanence and Impermanence of Mathematical Concepts October 21st, 2023 at 2:30pm EST Past Event Watch the video » What do you think of when you think of the number five? Do you think of symbol like 5, a pattern like ⁙, or the fifth item on a list? Today, the concept of number is fixed and eternal, unlinked to anything in the universe. But history shows that mathematics is anything but fixed. In… read more »
The Beauty and Unity of Mathematics Saturday, December 1st, 2018 at 2:30pm Past Event Watch the video » Proof, in the form of step by step deduction, following the rules of logical reasoning, is the ultimate test of validity in mathematics. Some proofs, however, are so long or complex, or both, that they cannot be checked for errors by human experts. In response, a small but growing community of mathematicians, collaborating with computer… read more »
Permanence and Impermanence of Mathematical Concepts October 21st, 2023 at 2:30pm EST Past Event Watch the video » What do you think of when you think of the number five? Do you think of symbol like 5, a pattern like ⁙, or the fifth item on a list? Today, the concept of number is fixed and eternal, unlinked to anything in the universe. But history shows that mathematics is anything but fixed. In… read more »