November 9, 2006
Hendrik Lenstra to give VIGRE lecture
The UW will host Hendrik Lenstra as part of the VIGRE Distinguished Lecturer Series, designed to honor stellar ambassadors of mathematics and to expand public interest in and understanding of mathematics.
VIGRE stands for the National Science Foundation program Vertical Integration of Research and Education in the Mathematical Sciences. Lecturers in the series are chosen for their reputations as excellent speakers and their contributions to the mathematical sciences.
Lenstra will be giving a lecture aimed at a general audience titled Escher and the Droste Effect. It is slated for 4 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 15, in A102 Physics-Astronomy.
In 1956, the Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher made an unusual lithograph with the title “Print Gallery.” It shows a young man viewing a print in an exhibition gallery. Among the buildings depicted on the print, he sees paradoxically the very same gallery that he is standing in.
A lot is known about the way in which Escher made his lithograph. It is not nearly as well known that it contains a hidden “Droste effect,” or infinite repetition; but this is brought to light by a mathematical analysis of the studies used by Escher. On the basis of this discovery, a team of mathematicians at Leiden produced a series of hallucinating computer animations. These show what happens inside the mysterious spot in the middle of the lithograph that Escher left blank.
Lenstra is professor of mathematics at the Universiteit Leiden, and the University of California at Berkeley. He is responsible for two of the most famous algorithms in 20th century number theory.
He will also give the Mathematics Colloquium on Tuesday the 14th, an informal talk in the Number Theory Seminar Web site), and will meet graduate students from the three participating VIGRE departments; Applied Mathematics, Mathematics and Statistics.
