The Department of Mathematical Sciences at The University of Memphis will once again observe its longstanding relationship with one of the leading mathematicians of the 20th Century when it sponsors the Paul Erdös Lecture Series March 1 and 2.

The focal point of the two-day event is the Paul Erdös Memorial Lecture, given each year by an internationally renowned scholar. This year's speaker will be Dr. Enrico Bombieri, a Fields Medalist from the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton. He will discuss "Prime Numbers: The First 2,500 Years." Bombieri will speak at 4 p.m. Friday, March 1, at the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, Room 248.

The weekend's events will begin Friday at 1 p.m. Saturday's events will run from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. With the exception of Bombieri's talk, all lectures will take place in Room 351, Winfield Dunn Hall.

Other participants will include Zoltán Furedi of The University of Illinois - Urbana/Champaign, Ron Gould of Emory University, Russell Lyons of Georgia Tech University, Hugh Montgomery of the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Edward Dobson of Mississippi State University, Penny Haxell of the University of Waterloo, and Paul Balister and Randall McCutcheon of The University of Memphis.

For the past six years, the department has honored Erdös, who visited U of M professors and studied with them for 23 years. Erdös visited the University after he learned that the math department was involved in combinatorics and graph theory, two branches of the mathematical sciences. Erdös discovered that professors in The U of M's math department had determined the Ramsey number for any pair of cycles. He soon started visiting the department frequently and working with members of the faculty. During their collaborations, Erdös and U of M faculty members wrote more than 50 research papers.

More News Releases