Keynotes

Abstracts:

Professor Edward Frenkel
Imagination and Knowledge  

Albert Einstein famously said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world.” In my talk, I will give examples from the history of mathematics that support Einstein’s view, showing how imagination provides bursts of insight that enable mathematicians to make new advances and to abandon what was taken for granted as well known and well understood. We see that in the discovery of imaginary numbers in Cardano’s book “Ars Magna”; in Ramanujan’s marvelous formulas that he said were written by Goddess Namagiri in his dreams; in the ideas of the Langlands Program, and much more. Imagination has always been humanity’s best antidote to fear, dogma, and oppression. And especially in this "brave new world," in which AI-powered information technology is being used to modify and control our behavior while we are being told that life is "just an algorithm" and a human is nothing but "a sequence of 0s and 1s," we need to acknowledge, embrace, and utilize our gift of imagination. 

Professor Sarah Hart

A Mathematical Journey through Literature

In this lecture we’ll look at some of the many ways that mathematical ideas and structures can be found in literature. From the hidden algebra behind poetic forms, to a novel whose underlying structure uses a mathematical puzzle that took 200 years to solve, the goal is to show you that not only are mathematics and literature inextricably linked, but that understanding these links can enhance your enjoyment of both.