Contents

Preface: What is Mathematics? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Welcome! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Structure and Randomness in the Prime Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Terence Tao
How to Solve a Diophantine Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Michael Stoll
From Sex to Quadratic Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Simon Norton
Small Divisors: Number Theory in Dynamical Systems . . . . . . . 43
Jean-Christophe Yoccoz
How do IMO Problems Compare with Research Problems?
Ramsey Theory as a Case Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
W. Timothy Gowers
How do Research Problems Compare with IMO Problems?
A Walk Around Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Stanislav Smirnov
Graph Theory Over 45 Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Laszlo Lov asz
Communication Complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Alexander A. Razborov
Ten Digit Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Lloyd N. Trefethen
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vi Contents
The Ever-Elusive Blowup in the Mathematical Description
of Fluids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Robert M. Kerr and Marcel Oliver
About the Hardy Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Nader Masmoudi
The Lion and the Christian, and Other Pursuit and Evasion
Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Bela Bollob as
Three Mathematics Competitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
G unter M. Ziegler
Complex Dynamics, the Mandelbrot Set, and Newtons
Method or: On Useless and Useful Mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Dierk Schleicher
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