Featuring Dr. John Horton Conway, Princeton University

inventor of the Game of Life, Sprouts, and the Doomsday Algorithm

"Tangles, Knots and Numbers"

5:00 Tuesday - April 9, 2002 - Atlanta, GA

Clary Theater - Student Success Center

ABSTRACT: How can you understand the shape of a knot, or prove that it really is knotted? What makes one knot different from another? I'll describe some ways in which elementary arithmetic can help. Although we're all familiar with knots, the theory of knots is a hard subject; it took more than a century before mathematicians were even able to find a guaranteed way to tell whether a string is knotted or not. However, some things are easy...

This talk is intended for a general audience.

Reception to follow

John Conway, F.R.S., is the John von Neumann Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University. He is a masterful expositor of mathematics who is perhaps most widely known as the inventor of the Game of Life (popular screensaver and important example of a cellular automaton). Professor Conway is the author of numerous articles and books, including Winning Ways. He has received many prizes, including the Pólya Prize from the London Mathematical Society, the Nemmers Prize, and the Steele Prize from the American Mathematical Society. Professor Conway will be giving special lectures for Georgia Tech students and faculty on April 8 and 9.

Stelson Lecture and Associated Events

4:30 John Conway (Princeton, Mathematics)
"Understanding Polyhedra and Their Symmetries"
Skiles 249

Tuesday April 9, 2002
3:00 David Wolfe (Gustavus Adolphus College, Math/CS)
"Putting the Combinatorics in Combinatorial Game Theory"
Skiles 269
ABSTRACT

5:00 John Conway (Princeton, Mathematics)
"Tangles, Knots, and Numbers"
Clary Theatre - Student Success Center

6:00 Reception (Student Success Center)

Other Upcoming School of Mathematics Events

3:00 Peter Winkler (Bell Labs)
"Games People Don't Play" -- Lecture for Graduate Students
Skiles 269

4:30 Colloquium
Peter Winkler (Bell Labs)
"Building Uniformly Random Objects"
Skiles 269
ABSTRACT

Sunday April 7, 2002
2:30 PROOF (at the Alliance Theater)