The University of Illinois at Urbana-Chamapaign is hosting Number Theory Day on Friday, October 12, 2012, prior to the annual Midwest Graduate Student Number Theory meeting on the following two days. Because number theory is one of the fastest growing areas within mathematics and because many of its findings have proven to be of enormous use to not only researchers in other sciences but to the broader public as well, it is important that students are exposed to and learn about all of these possibilities. On Number Theory Day, six researchers in number theory, reflecting the breadth of current research in the subject, will give lectures of approximately 45-50 minutes each. The speakers represent a wide range of interests within number theory, including algebraic number theory, automorphic forms and Hilbert modular varieties, modular forms, combinatorial number theory, elementary number theory, and analytic number theory.
In recent years, the field of number theory has stretched well beyond previous boundaries and has been of critical importance in not only other branches of mathematics but in computer science and physics as well. Moreover, in the past two or three decades, applications of number theory to cryptography and coding theory have provided a safer and more secure environment for our country. A generation or more ago, these applications could not have been envisioned. It should be emphasized that the applications arose out of fundamental research that had been previously conducted without knowledge of the applications that would be made further down the road. Even within number theory, the boundary lines among different disciplines within the subject are not as fixed as in the past. Thus, students specializing in number theory must be familiar with a wide range of areas within the subject. In selecting speakers for Number Theory Day, which precedes the Graduate Student Number Theory Conference at the University of Illinois, the organizing committee has attempted to recognize the wide expanse of the subject. Moreover, as students listen to the lectures of other students in number theory from neighboring universities, they will further be exposed to the enormous breadth of the subject.
Additional information is available on the conference website: www.math.illinois.edu/mntcg9/
The Midwest Graduate Student Conference in Number Theory was held on the University of Illinois campus in Urbana-Champaign on October 13--14, 2012. It was preceded by Number Theory Day on October 12. We invited six number theorists from a variety of areas within number theory to give hour lectures on Number Theory Day. They were: William Banks (Missouri), Jordan Ellenberg (Wisconsin), Amanda Folsom (Yale), Jayce Getz (Montreal, Duke), Paul Pollack (UBC, Georgia), and Ae Ja Yee (Penn State). Most of those attending the Graduate Student Number Theory Conference also attended Number Theory Day. The Graduate Student Number Theory meeting was perhaps the most successful in the decade's history of the annual conference. Although faculty could attend lectures, only graduate students and recent graduate students were eligible to give lectures. We defined a ``recent graduate student'' as someone within two years of having received a Ph.D. We had expected about 60 participants, but, in fact, over 100 attended the meeting. Of these participants, over 80 were current graduate students. The participants came from over 20 colleges and universities. Each graduate student or recent graduate student was eligible to give a 20 minute lecture. Altogether, 43 actually gave talks. Because of the large number of speakers, we were forced to run parallel sessions for part of the meeting. The funding that we received from the National Science Foundation was primarily used for lodging and transportation. By recommending that participants share a room, we were able to cover all accommodations for lodging. For approximately 60% of the graduate student participants, we were able to use NSF funding to cover transportation; for the remaining 40% of graduate students, we partially reimbursed their transportation. We feel that the graduate students attending the meeting learned a lot of number theory over a considerable expanse of the field. We thank the NSF for making this possible.
