Departmental Colloquium
Mark Ronan
UIC
Symmetry and the Monster
Abstract: One November evening in 1978, a mathematician named John McKay was
sitting at home in Montreal reading some papers in number theory, and was
astonished to see the number 196,884. It was apparently the smallest
non-trivial coefficient for a function of great importance to number
theorists, yet in his own area of mathematics (group theory) the number
196,883 had recently appeared as the smallest possible, non-trivial
dimension for the Monster. This mysterious coincidence led to some
amazing observations, now embraced by the term moonshine, leading
from number theory, through group theory, to string theory in
mathematical physics.
The Monster itself is a finite group. All finite groups are built up from
simple groups, and the talk will start by explaining how these
simple groups came to be discovered. There are a dozen different
families, along with 26 exceptions called sporadic groups and the
largest exception is the Monster. The discovery of these exceptions is a
fascinating story, involving many mathematicians over many years, and we
shall follow it through to the moonshine mysteries inspired by McKay^Òs
observation. The talk will be non-technical, and will say as much about
the mathematicians as the mathematics.
This is a Grad Student colloquium as well, all faculty and students are
encouraged to attend. The talk will be followed by the special Annual Math
Oktoberfest themed tea at 4pm!
Friday September 29, 2006 at 3:00 PM in SEO 636