Edwin O'Shea
Public lecture in conjunction with Maths Week 2009
Talk title
"Understanding prime numbers through differentiation and quadratic functions"
Talk description
We will first talk about the fact that there are infinitely many prime numbers. This was first proved
2,500 years ago and one of the most beautiful proofs of this claim is based on knowing the derivative
of the natural log function, f(x) = ln(x). Amazingly, this proof tells us that there are at least
ln(x) many prime numbers between 1 and x.
Next we will talk about quadratic functions: the polynomial n2 - 79n + 1601 produces primes
when we replace n with 0 or 1 or 2 or 3. Will this work for every integer that we replace n with?
Come to find out!
When and where is this talk?
Wednesday, Oct. 14 at 8pm. At the Cairnes Lecture Theatre on the NUIG campus.
Who is this talk for?
This talk is aimed at 4th, 5th and 6th years but all are welcome.