Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Professor Robbert Dijkgraaf presents "Mathematics and the Quantum Universe".
What is the role of mathematics in understanding the unified structure of the smallest particles and the largest structures in the universe? Are the laws of Nature necessarily written in beautiful and elegant equations? Recent ideas in string theory and cosmology seem to suggest that this might indeed be the case. At the same time the often counterintuitive ideas from quantum physics have also transformed modern mathematics itself, and have led to new insights in the abstract world of algebra and geometry.