TitleCongruent Numbers SpeakerRob Fisette DateOctober 20, 2009 Time *11:00 AM AbstractA 'congruent number' is a number that can appear as the area of a right triangle all of whose sides are rational numbers. Based on that definition, you already have a large collection of numbers which are not congruent--namely, all the irrational ones! The interesting question then is, which rational numbers are congruent? Well, 1 isn't...2 isn't...3 isn't...4 isn't...okay, I quit. It is a classical problem in number theory to find an easy way to check whether a given number is congruent or not. We will explore this problem, phrase it a few equivalent ways, and relate the answer to a very famous problem involving elliptic curves. Do you know the Pythagorean Theorem? Of course you do. So you should come to this talk. Return to Undergraduate Seminar home page. * Note the unusual time. |
