Arnold Ross Lectures

The purpose of this series of lectures for talented high school mathematics students is to stimulate their interest in mathematics beyond the traditional classroom and to show them the tremendous opportunities for careers in mathematics--as mathematics teachers and as researchers in government, industry, and university programs. The lectures are intended to illustrate some recent development in mathematical research. Read the background behind the Arnold Ross Lectures.

The most recent Arnold Ross Lecture was held on July 18, 2024, and delivered by Jordan Ellenberg of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Please feel free to watch and share the lecture below!


Past Arnold Ross Lectures

Jordan Ellenberg

2024 Arnold Ross Lecture

On Thursday, July 18, 2024, Jordan Ellenberg, University of Wisconsin-Madison, delivered the 2024 Arnold Ross Lecture at Boston University, hosted by PROMYS (Program in Mathematics for Young Scientists). View the 2024 Arnold Ross Lecture and read a feature story about the event.

Biography:

Jordan Ellenberg is the John D. MacArthur Professor of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. He is also the author of the best-selling books How Not to Be Wrong and Shape

 

Noam Elkies

2023 Arnold Ross Lecture

On Tuesday, August 1, 2023, Professor Isabel Vogt, Brown University, delivered the 2023 Arnold Ross Lecture at Boston University, hosted by PROMYS (Program in Mathematics for Young Scientists).

Biography:

Isabel Vogt is an assistant professor of mathematics at Brown University. Her research involves the geometry of solutions of polynomial equations and number-theoretic aspects, such as when the coordinates of the solutions are rational numbers. She received her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2019 for which she was awarded the Dissertation Prize from the Association for Women in Mathematics. In addition to her research, Dr. Vogt is passionate about building an inclusive and diverse mathematical community.

 

Noam Elkies

2022 Arnold Ross Lecture*

On Thursday, July 7, 2022, Professor Noam D. Elkies, Harvard University, delivered the 2022 Arnold Ross Lecture at Boston University, hosted by PROMYS (Program in Mathematics for Young Scientists). The lecture also included a time for Q&A at the conclusion. View the lecture.

*Rescheduled from 2020.

 

2021 Arnold Ross Lecture

The American Regions Mathematical League (ARML), which was to be the site of the lecture, held a modified virtual format of their competition and the Arnold Ross lecture was not included in the event.  

 

Professor Bjorn Poonen
Photo by Justin Knight

2019 Arnold Ross Lecture

Professor Bjorn Poonen, Claude Shannon Professor of Mathematics at MIT gave the 2019 Arnold Ross Lecture at the 44th American Regions Mathematics League (ARML) at Pennsylvania State University. Poonen began his talk on Elliptic Curvesby describing the classical problems on finding Pythagorean triples, and moved to more modern questions relating to the finding of points on elliptic curves and ended with easy to state open problems on the distribution of their ranks.  The slides from his talk can be found on his homepage.

 

Tadashi TokiedaPhoto courtesy Davey Hubay

 

2018 Arnold Ross Lecture

Professor Tadashi Tokieda, Professor of Mathematics at Stanford University gave the 2018 Arnold Ross Lecture, A World from a Sheet of Paper, at the Saint Louis Science Center, St. Louis, Missouri.  He started with a sheet of paper which he folded, stacked, crumpled, and sometimes tore.  At one point, he demonstrated to the audience how to trisect any angle using paper-folding.  To read more and see photos from his talk click here there is also a video of the winner of the Who Wants to Be a Mathematician game that followed.

Professor Ken Ono

2017 Arnold Ross Lecture

Professor Ken Ono, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Mathematics, Emory University was the 2017 Arnold Ross Lecturer at the Orlando Science Center in Florida. Learn more about his talk "Why does Ramanujan, 'The Man Who Knew Infinity', matter?".

Nancy Kopell

Photo © 2000 Boston University. All rights reserved

2016 Arnold Ross Lecture

Professor Nancy Kopell, Professor of Mathematics at Boston University gave the 2016 Arnold Ross Lecture at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History in Fort Worth, Texas. She spoke about Brain Rhythms in Health and Disease. Read more about her talk and the other events.

Henry Cohn

Photo courtesy of Bryce Vickmark

2014 Arnold Ross Lecture

Henry Cohn, principal researcher and one of the founding members of Microsoft Research New England, gave the 2014 Arnold Ross Lecture at The Leonardo in Salt Lake City. He asked the question What’s the densest sphere packing in a million dimensions?. More about his Lecture and the Who Wants to Be a Mathematician game is available online.

Bryna Kra

2013 Fall Arnold Ross Lecture

Bryna Kra of Northwestern University gave the Fall 2013 Arnold Ross Lecture, Patterns and Disorder: How Random Can Random Be? The lecture was held at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois. Read more about her lecture and the Who Wants to Be a Mathematician game here.

Erik Demaine

2013 Spring Arnold Ross Lecture

Erik D. Demaine of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology gave the Spring Arnold Ross Lecture, Algorithms Meet Art, Puzzles, and Magic. . The lecture was held at the new Museum of Mathematics in New York City. Read more about his lecture and the Who Wants to Be a Mathematician game here.

Joan P. Hutchinson

Photo courtesy of Macalester College

2011 Spring Arnold Ross Lecture

Joan P. Hutchinson, Professor Emerita, Macalester College, gave the Arnold Ross Lecture, From crayons to color graphics: How mathematicians use color. The 2011 Lecture was held at the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul.

Thomas C. Hales

Photo Copyright ©, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2010, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

2010 Arnold Ross Lecture

Thomas C. Hales, Mellon Professor of Mathematics, University of Pittsburgh, gave the 2010 Arnold Ross Lecture, Can Computers Do Math? The Lecture was held at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, October 14, 2010. Learn more here.

Dana Randall

2009 Arnold Ross Lecture

Dana Randall of the Georgia Institute of Technology, gave the Arnold Ross Lecture, Domino Tilings of the Chessboard: An Introduction to Sampling and Counting at the National Science Center/Fort Discovery in Augusta, Georgia, on Thursday, October 29, 2009. Read more of the days events at Fort Discovery.

David C. Kelly with Hartman Halo

2008 Arnold Ross Lecture

David C. Kelly, Hampshire College, gave the 2008 Arnold Ross Lecture, From Pascal's Triangle to Sierpinski's Triangle in Base 2 at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry on Thursday, October 23. Read more here.

Barry Mazur

Photo by George Bergman

2007 Arnold Ross Lecture

Barry Mazur, Harvard University, gave the 2007 Arnold Ross Lecture on How many prime numbers are there? at the Museum of Science in Boston, MA on Thursday, November 1. Read more here.

Manjul Bhargava

2006 Arnold Ross Lecture

Manjul Bhargava, Princeton University, gave the 2006 Arnold Ross Lecture on The Mathematics of Rhythm at the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago on Tuesday, October 24. Read more here.

Kenneth Ribet

2005 Arnold Ross Lecture

Kenneth A. Ribet, University of California, Berkeley, gave the 2005 Arnold Ross Lecture on Fermat's Last Theorem and Beyond at the New York Hall of Science on Thursday, November 3. Read more here.

Elwyn Berlekamp

2004 Arnold Ross Lecture

Elwyn Berlekamp, University of California at Berkeley, gave the 2004 Arnold Ross Lecture on The Dots and Boxes Game: Sophisticated Child's Play at the St. Louis Science Center on April 21. Following the lecture AMS Public Awareness Officer Mike Breen emceed the "Who Wants To Be A Mathematician" game, during which five talented high school students won a total of $7,000 from the AMS. As a grand finale to the day's events, Berlekamp played many of the high school students in the audience in a simultaneous game of Dots and Boxes. 

Paul Sally

2003 Arnold Ross Lecture

Paul J. Sally Jr., University of Chicago, gave the 2003 Arnold Ross Lecture on Problems in Mathematics from Zero to Infinity to an enthusiastic crowd of approxomately 250 high school students and teachers. This lecture was further enhanced by a game show that was held after refreshments.

The successful mathematics game show, Who Wants to be a Mathematician, was run in conjunction with the lecture by the AMS Public Awareness Office. The exuberant student audience contributed to the atmosphere of excitement and enjoyment as they cheered on the contestants.

Comments from students who attended a recent Arnold Ross Lecture:

We are three students who attended the recent Arnold Ross Lecture at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago and wanted to thank you for bringing the lecture here. It was a great experience and we had a lot of fun. We hope the lecture returns soon.

Read more here.

Curtis McMullen

2002 Arnold Ross Lecture

Curtis McMullen, Harvard mathematics professor and 1998 Fields Medalist, spoke on "From Triangles to Infinity." McMullen motivated the talk by asking the audience what path a lion should take to capture a human, if both are in an enclosed ring. A little later in the talk, he asked students in the audience to assemble polyhedra using interlocking triangles, given the constraint that a fixed number of triangles have to meet at each vertex. As the title of the talk suggests, there were many different areas of mathematics touched on by McMullen, including: Fermat's Last Theorem, Zeno's Paradoxes, hyperbolic and spherical geometry, the harmonic series, and tiling. Near the end of his talk, McMullen showed a path that a human could take to elude the lion and used results about infinite series to demonstrate the path's effectiveness. The teachers and students who filled the Boston Museum of Science auditorium thoroughly enjoyed the subject of the talk and the manner in which it was delivered. Many students sought out McMullen after his talk to ask questions, and some even asked for his autograph.

Read more here.

Rudin and Conway 2001

2001 Arnold Ross Lecture

Mary Ellen Rudin (University of Wisconsin) and John H. Conway (Princeton University), The AMS partnered with the St. Louis Science Center on April 3 to present the twelfth in this series of lectures for talented high school mathematics students. Over 125 students and teachers came to hear this year's lectures, "What is Topology?" by Mary Ellen Rudin (University of Wisconsin) and "Tangles, Bangles, and Knots," by John H. Conway (Princeton University).

Professors Rudin and Conway circulated freely among the students and teachers as they arrived, introducing themselves and chatting. One busload came all the way from Breese, Illinois, two hours away! Conway, in his inimitable style, entertained all and challenged some with his sleight of hand using ropes and metal braids.


Background

In the late 1980s, with the encouragement of Professor Paul J. Sally, Jr., (1933-2013) of the University of Chicago, the American Mathematical Society instituted a series of lectures aimed at talented high school mathematics students. In 1993, the series was dedicated to Professor Arnold E. Ross of Ohio State University for his many contributions to the development of mathematical and scientific talent.

As chairman of the mathematics department at the University of Notre Dame, Dr. Arnold Ross started a mathematics enrichment program for high school teachers in 1947. He started his multi-level summer program for gifted high school students in 1957 and ran it every summer until 2000, giving the number theory lecture each morning.

In keeping with this prestigious tradition, the American Mathematical Society is proud to present the annual Arnold Ross Lecture for talented high school mathematics students. These lectures are sustained, in part, by an endowment established in 1996, by Professor Sally.

This is a time of exciting progress in the mathematical sciences. Mathematical research has stimulated new ideas in many subject areas – computer science, physics, engineering, biology, the behavioral sciences, and other disciplines.

For additional information, contact AMS Programs Staff at the American Mathematical Society.