From the Manhattan Project to Elliptic Curves, by Professor Steven Miller, Williams College

From the Manhattan Project to Elliptic Curves, by Professor Steven Miller, Williams College , Wednesday October 11, 1:00 – 1:50pm, North Science Building 113, Wachenheim

Abstract:

Physicists developed Random Matrix Theory (RMT) in the 1950s to explain
the energy levels of heavy nuclei. A fortuitous meeting over tea at the
Institute in the 1970s revealed that similar answers are found for zeros
of L-functions, and since then RMT has been used to model their behavior.
The distribution of these zeros is intimately connected to many problems
in number theory, from how rapidly the number of primes less than X grows
to the class number problem to the bias of primes to be congruent to 3 mod
4 and not 1 mod 4. The goal is to talk about these problems and
connections, focusing on systems that are easier to describe and some
results of Williams students, and see what math is needed in tackling
these questions. While there won’t be time to cover all of this in 30
minutes, happy to stay later and chat a bit more.

slides online here:
https://web.williams.edu/Mathematics/sjmiller/public_html/math/talks/ManhattanToEC_Colloq_MASONIV2020.pdf