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Distinguished mathematician Professor Akshay Venkatesh will return to his alma mater next week to deliver the Mahler Lecture on the curious subject of prime numbers.

Professor Venkatesh, Professor of Mathematics at Stanford University, began undergraduate studies at UWA at the age of 14 where he was awarded first-class honours in pure mathematics. He received his PhD in 2002 from Princeton University. In 2008 he was awarded the the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize, an annual prize given for outstanding contributions to areas of mathematics influenced by the genius Srinivasa Ramanujan.

He previously visited UWA in 2011 as a UWA Institute of Advanced Studies Professor-at-Large.

In his Perth lecture ‘ Two centuries of prime numbers' , Professor Venkatesh will survey some of our understanding of prime numbers in a nontechnical fashion, starting with the "music of the primes" - the strange oscillations between regions where primes are more common and more scarce - and concluding with a discussion of Yitang Zhang's discovery: that prime numbers must occasionally come very close to one another.

The Mahler Lectureship is named for Professor Kurt Mahler, who made major contributions to Australian Mathematics from his arrival in the 1960s, until his death in 1988.

The Lectureship is awarded biannually to a distinguished mathematician.

WHAT: The 2013 Mahler Lecture: Two centuries of prime numbers'

WHEN: 25 September 2013 at 6pm

WHERE: University Club Theatre Auditorium, UWA ( Parking: P3 off Hackett entrance 1 )

Cost: Free, but RSVP essential.

REGISTER: https://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/lectures/akshay-venkatesh

Media references

Audrey Barton (UWA Institute of Advanced Studies)  (+61 8)  6488 4797