University to host Distinguished Harvard Professor for prestigious lecture

A Harvard Professor will be coming to the University of Leicester to give a prestigious public lecture named in memory of the famous British mathematician G.H. Hardy in recognition of his outstanding contributions to mathematics.

Professor Jacob Lurie will deliver his lecture as part of the LMS 2016 Hardy Lecture Tour funded by the London Mathematical Society (LMS).  It takes place on 30 June at 6pm in Ken Edwards Lecture Theatre 2.

Dr Frank Neumann, from our Department of Mathematics, said: “Professor Lurie has had a major impact on modern day pure mathematics. His work bridges between several areas of mathematics, including topology, geometry, category theory, algebra, number theory, mathematical physics.  In particular he conducted seminal work on derived algebraic geometry, higher category theory, stable homotopy theory and topological field theory."

Dr Simona Paoli, also from the Department of Mathematics, added: “In his lecture at Leicester, Professor Lurie will report on his spectacular recent breakthrough with Dennis Gaitsgory (Harvard University) on the proof of the famous Weil Conjecture on Tamagawa numbers for function fields as first conjectured by French mathematician Andre Weil.”

The LMS Hardy Lecture Tour, founded in 1967, attracts to the UK a famous overseas mathematician on a two week tour of the top UK research groups in the respective area. Previous Hardy lecturers include Fields Medallist Terence Tao (2004).