What's so Special about Mordell Curves?

Saturday, October 18, 2014: 4:10 PM
LACC 308AB (Los Angeles Convention Center)
Alejandra Alvarado, PhD , Mathematics and Computer Science, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, IL
The study of solutions to Diophantine equations has been around throughout history. The equation y2=x3+k for k a nonzero integer, is named after Mordell, who showed that every equation of this form contains only finitely many integer solutions. The goal of this talk is to give a brief survey in several areas of mathematics that this equation has appeared.