A specialist in number theory and algebraic geometry, Ribet will speak about “Fermat’s Last Theorem and the Modularity of Elliptic Curves.” His talk will center on the 20th-century history of cubic equations from the 1950s to the 1990s. The public is invited and the event is free.
Following Sunday’s lecture, Ribet will host a Mathematics Department colloquium titled “Finding Square Roots Mod P” on Monday, Oct. 17, at 4 p.m. in Room 102 of the Kinesiology and Athletics Building. A pre-colloquium tea is scheduled at 3:30 p.m. on the third floor of the Behavioral and Social Sciences Building.
After receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1973, Ribet taught at Princeton, conducted extensive research in Paris and joined the Berkeley faculty in 1978, winning his department’s Distinguished Teaching Award there in 1985. He played a prominent role in the proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, named after a 17th century French lawyer and amateur mathematician who advanced number theory, the branch of pure mathematics that deals with the properties of numbers and integers.
Ribet was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1997 and the National Academy of Sciences in 2000. Brown University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1998 and he was previously inducted as a Vigneron d’honneur by the Jurade de Saint Emilion.
Humboldt State’s Kieval Lecture Series brings eminent mathematicians to campus to address broad aspects of the discipline that are of interest to undergraduates and the general public. Through a substantial gift of stock in 1987, Harry S. Kieval, HSU professor of mathematics from 1966 to 1979, established the university’s first charitable trust. In addition to supporting the lecture series, the Harry S. Kieval Endowment provides scholarships of up to $2000 annually to outstanding math students. Lecture details are posted at humboldt.edu/math/kieval.