Beautiful Math - Ken Ribet @MuseumOfMathematics

Uploaded May 2016 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago

Ken Ribet, Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley

$Math Encounters — Online: “Number Theory Problems: From Easy to Undecidable” Rational numbers are fractions such as -2/7. It turns out that the circle x2+y2=3 has no points whose coordinates are rational numbers, while the circle x2+y2=5 has infinitely many. Why do these equations behave so differently? What about more complicated equations: is there a method to decide whether there are any solutions in rational numbers? Join Bjorn Poonen, Distinguished Professor in Science at MIT, as a search for answers leads to questions about prime numbers, geometry, and problems that a computer will never be able to solve. Special introduction by C. Kenneth Fan, President of Girls’ Angle. Math Encounters is a public presentation series celebrating the spectacular world of mathematics, presented by the Simons Foundation and the National Museum of Mathematics. For further information, call the National Museum of Mathematics at 212-542-0566 or e-mail mathencounters@momath.org.$

Math Encounters: The Joy of Figuring It Out: Discovering the Rules Through Play Gordon Hamilton

Math Encounters: Realizing Abstractions: what can mathematics do for art? Edmund Harriss Nov. 2023

Math Encounters: Of Tubes and Lips: Resonance and Superposition with Dan Boye June 7, 2023

MoMath mask video contest submission by Mina Erik

MoMath mask video contest submission by Kseniya Nazarenko

Math Encounters Star Trek: The Math of Khan with James Grime

Math Encounters: The Graph Reconstruction Conjecture(s) Elise Raphael August 9, 2023

Math Encounters Life in Curved Space From Magnifying Glasses to General Relativity

Math Encounters - Dice, Stamps, and Counting: Putting Polynomials to Work

National Museum of Mathematics |

Beautiful Math - Ken Ribet