On Tuesday, 12 July, at 18:00, there will be an online lecture in the "Zapytaj fizyka" series, delivered by a world-renowned mathematician from Ukraine, Professor Maryna Viazovska. On 5 July this year, Professor Viazovska was honoured with the highest mathematical honour, receiving the Fields Medal.

We would like to congratulate Prof. Viazovska on her award and invite you to the lecture, which is an open lecture within the String Math 2022 conference.

Lecture: https://zapytajfizyka.fuw.edu.pl/wyklady/maryna-viazovska/  
Medal: https://www.mathunion.org/imu-awards/fields-medal/fields-medals-2022 

Bio: Maryna Viazovska was born, taught and studied in Kyiv, Ukraine. She studied at the Taras Shevchenko University and the Institute of Mathematics of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Kyiv, before obtaining her Master's degree at the University of Kaiserlautern, and her PhD in 2013 at the University of Bonn, Germany. She held post-doctoral fellowships at Humboldt University in Berlin and the University of Princeton in the USA, before becoming a professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, where she has headed the Department of Number Theory since 2018. One of Maryna Viazovskaya's most important achievements is the solution of the so-called packing problem of spheres in dimension 8 and, in collaboration with other mathematicians, the solution of this problem in dimension 24. For these and other achievements, she has received many prestigious awards and honours, including the Salem Prize, the Clay Mathematical Institute Prize, and the New Horizons in Mathematics Award. In 2018, she was invited as a lecturer at the International Congress of Mathematics - one of the most important honours for mathematicians. In 2019, she received the Fermat Prize and the Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize from the American Mathematical Society, and in 2020, the European Mathematical Society Prize.

Title: The sphere packing problem and beyond

Abstract: The sphere packing problem is a very natural geometric question and it has a long and exciting history. The original sphere packing problem in dimension 3 is known as Kepler’s conjecture and it was famously solved by Thomas Hales at the very end of the twentieth century. In 2016 the speaker was lucky enough to solve the sphere packing problem in dimension 8 and contribute to its solution in dimension 24. This lecture is aimed at the general public and does not request many prerequisites in mathematics.  We will speak about the history of Kepler’s conjecture. Also, I explain what is the “dimension” for a mathematician and why it is an extremely useful concept for everyone. Finally, we will talk about the connections between the sphere packing problem and some mysteries of modern physics.