Tetrahedra: From Aristotle’s Mistake to Unsolved Problems
- Speaker
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Bjorn Poonen, Ph.D.Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Presidential Lectures are free public colloquia centered on four main themes: Biology, Physics, Mathematics and Computer Science, and Neuroscience and Autism Science. These curated, high-level scientific talks feature leading scientists and mathematicians and are intended to foster discourse and drive discovery among the broader NYC-area research community. We invite those interested in the topic to join us for this weekly lecture series.
Tetrahedra are three-dimensional shapes with four triangular faces. Which tetrahedra can tile to fill a three-dimensional space? Which tetrahedra have rational dihedral angles (the angle between two intersecting planes)? Which tetrahedra can be sliced and reassembled into a cube? Each of these three problems has been around for at least 45 years, and one of them is over 2300 years old. In this lecture, Bjorn Poonen will discuss the status of these problems and explain how he solved one of them in collaboration with K. Kedlaya, A. Kolpakov, and M. Rubinstein.
Registration is required for this free event.
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About the Speaker
Poonen researches number theory and algebraic geometry at MIT. He has received the Guggenheim, Packard, Rosenbaum, Simons, and Sloan Fellowships, as well as the Chauvenet Prize, a Miller Professorship, and the MIT School of Science Prize in Undergraduate Teaching. He is a Simons Investigator, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and founding managing editor of Algebra & Number Theory. Twenty-five mathematicians have earned a Ph.D. under his supervision.