The public conference will take place on 28 November 2022
From 8 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.
At the Globe of Science and Innovation, CERN

Maryna Viazovska was awarded a Fields Medal, a prestigious honour often described as the Nobel Prize of Mathematics, for solving the sphere-packing problem in 8 and 24 dimensions. In doing so, she resolved a question that had stumped mathematicians for more than four centuries: how to pack spheres – such as oranges stacked in a pyramid – as close together as possible.

In this lecture we will talk about the history of the sphere-packing problem in different dimensions, the concept of high dimensions and its role in mathematics, and also about new unexpected connections between sphere-packing in high dimensions and the theory of quantum gravity.

In 2022, Viazovska became the second female Fields Medallist – after Maryam Mirzakhani in 2014 – and joins a list of over 60 mathematicians to have received the prestigious honour to date.

Presentation in English | Event recorded
Mandatory registration
More information on the Indico page of the event