Dynamics, Arithmetic, and Wide Spacing of Orbits

Joseph H. Silverman, Brown University
-
ECE 125

An abstract discrete dynamical system consists of a set X and a self-map f from X to itself. Dynamics studies the orbits of points of X under repeated application of f. When X and f are defined by polynomials, algebraic geometry comes into play, and when the polynomials have integer coefficients, number theory joins the game. In the first part of this talk, I will discuss how these three areas of mathematics, dynamical systems, algebraic geometry, and number theory, have come together in the past 30+ years to form the active new field of arithmetic dynamics. In the second part I will give a taste of arithmetic dynamics through a recent conjecture which says that in the number theory setting, there are lots of orbits of rational points and that they are widely spaced throughout the space X.

Event Type
Event Subcalendar