This comprehensive volume introduces elliptic curves and the fundamentals of modeling by a family of random matrices.

This comprehensive volume introduces elliptic curves and the fundamentals of modeling by a family of random matrices.

Celebrating one of the leading figures in contemporary number theory – John H. Coates – on the occasion of his 70th birthday, this collection of contributions covers a range of topics in number theory, concentrating on the arithmetic of elliptic curves, modular forms, and Galois representations. Several of the contributions in this volume were presented at the conference Elliptic Curves, Modular Forms and Iwasawa Theory, held in honour of the 70th birthday of John Coates in Cambridge, March 25-27, 2015. The main unifying theme is Iwasawa theory, a field that John Coates himself has done much to create. This collection is indispensable reading for researchers in Iwasawa theory, and is interesting and valuable for those in many related fields.

The second Women in Numbers workshop (WIN2) was held November 6-11, 2011, at the Banff International Research Station (BIRS) in Banff, Alberta, Canada. During the workshop, group leaders presented open problems in various areas of number theory, and working groups tackled those problems in collaborations begun at the workshop and continuing long after. This volume collects articles written by participants of WIN2. Survey papers written by project leaders are designed to introduce areas of active research in number theory to advanced graduate students and recent PhDs. Original research articles by the project groups detail their work on the open problems tackled during and after WIN2. Other articles in this volume contain new research on related topics by women number theorists. The articles collected here encompass a wide range of topics in number theory including Galois representations, the Tamagawa number conjecture, arithmetic intersection formulas, Mahler measures, Newton polygons, the Dwork family, elliptic curves, cryptography, and supercongruences. WIN2 and this Proceedings volume are part of the Women in Numbers network, aimed at increasing the visibility of women researchers' contributions to number theory and at increasing the participation of women mathematicians in number theory and related fields. This book is co-published with the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques.

Famous mathematical constants include the ratio of circular circumference to diameter, π = 3.14 ..., and the natural logarithm base, e = 2.718 .... Students and professionals can often name a few others, but there are many more buried in the literature and awaiting discovery. How do such constants arise, and why are they important? Here the author renews the search he began in his book Mathematical Constants, adding another 133 essays that broaden the landscape. Topics include the minimality of soap film surfaces, prime numbers, elliptic curves and modular forms, Poisson-Voronoi tessellations, random triangles, Brownian motion, uncertainty inequalities, Prandtl-Blasius flow (from fluid dynamics), Lyapunov exponents, knots and tangles, continued fractions, Galton-Watson trees, electrical capacitance (from potential theory), Zermelo's navigation problem, and the optimal control of a pendulum. Unsolved problems appear virtually everywhere as well. This volume continues an outstanding scholarly attempt to bring together all significant mathematical constants in one place.

This book focuses on the behaviour of large random matrices. Standard results are covered, and the presentation emphasizes elementary operator theory and differential equations, so as to be accessible to graduate students and other non-experts. The introductory chapters review material on Lie groups and probability measures in a style suitable for applications in random matrix theory. Later chapters use modern convexity theory to establish subtle results about the convergence of eigenvalue distributions as the size of the matrices increases. Random matrices are viewed as geometrical objects with large dimension. The book analyzes the concentration of measure phenomenon, which describes how measures behave on geometrical objects with large dimension. To prove such results for random matrices, the book develops the modern theory of optimal transportation and proves the associated functional inequalities involving entropy and information. These include the logarithmic Sobolev inequality, which measures how fast some physical systems converge to equilibrium.

The Proceedings of the ICM publishes the talks, by invited speakers, at the conference organized by the International Mathematical Union every 4 years. It covers several areas of Mathematics and it includes the Fields Medal and Nevanlinna, Gauss and Leelavati Prizes and the Chern Medal laudatios.