Renowned Mathematician to Speak at Colorado State University for 2007 Arne Magnus Lectures

Efim Zelmanov, a recipient of the Fields Medal in mathematics and the Rita L. Atkinson professor of mathematics at the University of California at San Diego, will deliver Colorado State University’s 2007 Arne Magnus Lectures.

Zelmanov will give his general lecture, "Algebra in the 20th Century," at 7 p.m. March 26 in Room 104 of Albert C. Yates Hall. The event will be followed by a colloquium at 4:10 p.m. March 27 in Room 120 of the Engineering Building and a seminar at 4:10 p.m. March 28 in Room 120 of the Engineering Building. All presentations are free and open to the public.

Zelmanov received the Fields Medal in 1994 for solving the Restricted Burnside Problem, a fundamental conjecture in algebra that mathematicians specializing in group theory had worked on throughout the 20th century.

The Fields Medal, considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for mathematics, is awarded every four years at the International Congress of Mathematicians to up to four mathematicians for groundbreaking work in the field. Aside from his work on the Restricted Burnside Problem, Zelmanov is well known for his doctoral dissertation that completely changed the sub-discipline of mathematics known as Jordan algebras.

Born in the former Soviet Union, Zelmanov received his doctorate from the Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk in 1980. He came to the United States in 1990 and held faculty appointments at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Chicago and Yale University before assuming his current position at UCSD in 2002.

Zelmanov was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and is its youngest member in the mathematics division. He has also served on the editorial board of more then 10 mathematics journals, including "The Annals of Mathematics," "The Journal of Algebra" and "The Journal of the American Mathematical Society." In addition to the Fields Medal, Zelmanov has received the Collge de France Medal and the Andr Aizenstadt Prize.

The Magnus Lectures are delivered annually at Colorado State in honor of former Colorado State mathematics professor Arne Magnus. Each spring since 1993, Colorado State’s mathematics department has welcomed an outstanding researcher to campus to deliver a series of lectures for the general public and for professionals within mathematics and related fields.

For more information on the Magnus Lecture and Zelmanov’s presentations, visit online at www.math.colostate.edu/events/magnus or call the mathematics department at (970) 419-1303.

-30-