2011 March 24 Seminar
Posted by dougensley on March 18, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
MCT 262, 3:30 – 4:30 pm
Triangles, Elliptic Curves, and $1,000,000
Spencer Hamblen
McDaniel College
Description: Are there any right triangles with area 1? What if we require that the sides of the triangle be integers? Rational numbers? A number N is called “congruent” if there is a right triangle with rational side lengths and area N — can we determine which numbers are congruent? We will investigate some of the surprising places congruent numbers show up, including how they relate to elliptic curves and the Birch–Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture.
See http://www.ship.edu/math/ for more information on the Shippensburg University Mathematics Department Seminar Series.
Shippensburg Mathematics 
Leave a comment