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The idea of geometric symmetry in architecture goes back to ancient times, but there is a rich mathematical theory of symmetry with many applications in the modern world. The mathematics of symmetry provides answers to natural questions that arise in topics as diverse as Rubik's Cube, the art of M.C. Escher, and the security of financial transactions on the Internet. Moreover, these three topics are not as unrelated as they may initially seem to be. The mathematical ideas will be developed from scratch, and illustrated with pictures and numerical examples.
Brian Conrad received his PhD under the guidance of Andrew Wiles at Princeton. He has been a Sloan Fellow and won a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation. Since 2008 he has been a Professor of Mathematics at Stanford University, and works on problems involving symmetry that emerges from number theory.
You can find more information about speaker Brian Conrad at http://math.stanford.edu/~conrad/