September 27, 2021
Jennifer Balakrishnan to present Sept. 28 mathematics colloquium
Jennifer Balakrishnan, Clare Boothe Luce associate professor of mathematics at Boston University, will present "Questions About Rational Points on Curves" as part of the Mathematics Department Women Lecture Series in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Association for Women in Mathematics. The presentation will be streamed from 2:30-3:20 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 28, via YouTube Live.
The abstract for the lecture: A rational point on a curve is a point whose coordinates are both rational numbers. When a curve has genus 2 or more, by a theorem of Faltings, there are always only finitely many rational points. Yet many more questions remain: how many rational points are there exactly? Is there an algorithm to find them all? I'll discuss these questions and more — ranging from the time of the ancient Greeks to the present, offer some answers, and highlight a selection of illustrative examples.
The math department is a part of K-State's College of Arts and Sciences. To learn more about opportunities in math at K-State, visit the math department website.