Baylor Lecture Series in Mathematics Hosts Award-Winning Mathematician

by Lillyan Baker, student newswriter, (254) 710-6805

Vaughan Jones, an award-winning professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, will present two lectures, "Flatland: A Great Place to do Algebra" " at 3:30 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 24, in room D109 of the Baylor Sciences Building and "Departmental Colloquium: An Avalanche of Associative Algebras Coming from Planar Algebra" at 3:30 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 25, room 344 of Sid Richardson Building on the Baylor University campus.

The event, which is free and open to the public, is part of the second annual Baylor lecture series in mathematics, which hosts national and international mathematicians who have provided contributions to the study of mathematics.

Vaughn's first lecture "Flatland: A Great Place to do Algebra" will explain a new type of algebra based off of the book, "Flatland" by Edwin A. Abbott. Vaughn will discuss how Abbott secretly camouflaged the knot theory, statistical mechanics and quantum computation throughout his book. Vaughn was awarded a Fields Medal in 1990 for his discovery linking the knot theory and quantum groups together.
Vaughn's second lecture "Departmental Colloquium: An Avalanche of Associative Algebras Coming from Planar Algebra" will connect several different abstract ideas including planar algebras and their associations with algebra structures, subfactors and the relationship between free probability and random matrices.
For more information about this event and the Baylor lecture series in mathematics, please visit Baylor Mathematics.