DePrima Lecture

The 21st Annual Charles R. DePrima Memorial
Undergraduate Mathematics Lecture
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
4:00 p.m. 151 Sloan

Abstract: How often can you encouter the same object in different mathematical places? I will tell you about some of my personal encounters with tori: in solving a problem in elementary number theory, in dealing with a cosmological model, and in dynamical systems.

Gunther Cornelissen was born in Gent (Belgium) in 1971. He received his PhD in 1997 under the supervision of Jan Van Geel (Gent) and Ernst-Ulrich Gekeler (Saarbrucken). After a 4- year postdoc position at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn and a visiting position in Leuven, he joined the faculty of Utrecht University, first as lecturer and since 2007 as full professor. He works in algebraic and arithmetic geometry, automorphic forms, and the relation between number theory and other fields, such as logic, noncommutative geometry and mathematical physics. He is currently studying zeta functions in Riemannian and noncommutative geometry, also as a tool in metric Riemannian geometry, relations between anabelian geometry, class field theory and quantum statistical mechanical systems (with Matilde Marcolli). All his research was/is funded by the Belgian and Dutch NSF, a Franco-Dutch collaboration grant, and the Max Planck Society.

The Charles R. DePrima Memorial Undergraduate Mathematics Lecture was established by a gift from Charles R. DePrima and Margaret Thurmond DePrima. The Institute is privileged to honor the memory of Professor DePrima and his distinguished contribution to mathematics and Caltech, where he served as a faculty member for over forty years, with a lecture each year by an outstanding mathematician. Professor DePrima perceived that there were few or no special talks or seminars designed for undergraduates; he and Margaret DePrima intended that this lecture series would fill that need.

Department of Mathematics