Mathematics Colloquia and Seminars

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Number Theory and Statistical Mechanics

Colloquium

Speaker: Pierluigi Contucci, UCD Mathematics
Location: 693 Kerr
Start time: Mon, Oct 12 1998, 4:10PM

(Analytical) Number theory studies the distribution of prime numbers. Statistical mechanics is the mathematical apparatus to study the thermodynamical properties of matter. What can these two disciplines have possibly in common? The talk, mainly addressed to students, will briefly introduce the two subjects and illustrate some recent (and less recent) ideas in which the two disciplines have fruitfully interacted.