University of Miami
Department of Mathematics



Professor Andrei Okounkov
Department of Mathematics
Princeton University
2006 Fields Medalist

will present

The Most Random of All Possible Worlds

Monday, January 26, 2009, 5:00pm
The Wesley Center, 1210 Stanford Drive

All interested persons are welcome to attend.

Abstract: Many things around us, such as the distribution of air molecules inside a room, are determined by a law of large numbers: the uniform distribution of molecules is by far the likeliest and it is the one that will occur. I will discuss some examples in which the outcome dictated by the law of large numbers is much more interesting than such uniform spreading and, instead, a beautiful geometry is produced.

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The McKnight-Zame Distinguished Lecture Series is made possible by a generous donation from Dr. Jeffrey Fuqua, who received his PhD in Mathematics from the University of Miami in 1972 under the direction of Professor James McKnight. This lecture series is named in honor of both Professor McKnight and Professor Alan Zame, who was a close mentor of Dr. Fuqua while he was a student at the University of Miami.