Understanding the Riemann Hypothesis

When: 
Thursday, May 23, 2019 - 7:00pm
Room: 
32-D463 (Star)
Lecturer(s): 
Sundar Sundaramurthy
Lecturer Photo

There is a close connection between the roots of Riemann's zeta function and prime numbers. Prime numbers play an important role in cryptography. The Riemann Hypothesis is the most important unsolved problem in all of mathematics. It was hypothesised more than 150 years ago. The reason it is not proven yet is because of the complex nature of analysis in the fourth dimension. In this talk we will try to understand the hypothesis and give possible directions for solving it. For clarity, we will be using a graphical method using Labview software. We will also make a geometric construction to get the concept clear. A basic understanding of complex variable theory is required for the audience. Currently, supercomputer resources are used to prove or disprove the Riemann hypothesis using brute force techniques. The Clay Institute in Cambridge, Massachussets has offered 1M$ in money to whoever gives a proof to this hypothesis.

Sundar M. Sundaramurthy is the Chief Technical Officer at Navin Enterprises LLC, an electronics consulting company in Massachusetts. Sundar has been a technical staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratory working in DSP algorithms and architectures. He has published many technical papers and has taught at many of the universities in New England. He obtained his B.E. (Electronics and Communications Engineering) from University of Madras in 1973, M.S.(by research) from Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai in 1975 and Ph.D. from Concordia University, Montreal in 1979.

This joint meeting of the Boston Chapter of the IEEE Computer Society and GBC/ACM will be held in MIT Room 32-D463 (the Star conference room on the 4th floor of the Stata Center, building 32 on MIT maps) . You can see it on this map of the MIT campus.