On June 12th, the next MIMA presentation will take place. This time, Mara Pompili will talk about prime factorsiations and when it works, or doesn't. 

• When: June 1th,  from 12:00 to 1pm
• Where: in the seminar-room 11.33 at Heinrichstraße 36
• Title: Is it prime or just pretending?

You can register under for a free-lunc box at https://imsc.uni-graz.at/mima/, but you are not required to do so. However, please consider to register anyway, as this allows the GWM to gauge how many people will attend. You can select that you do not want a lunch-box in the form. Everybody is welcome.

Abstract: We grow up believing that numbers behave nicely: every number can be split into prime pieces, and those pieces are unique. Simple, clean, reliable. Or so it seems.

In this talk, we’ll see what happens when that comforting idea suddenly stops being true. A failed attempt to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem revealed that some numbers only look well behaved, and that one hidden mistake was enough to change the course of modern mathematics.

From there, I’ll take you into the world of my own PhD research in Graz, where I study when factorization works, when it breaks, and how this appears inside mysterious modern objects called cluster algebras.

I’ll also share what doing a PhD abroad feels like: moving countries, getting stuck for weeks, doubting yourself, discovering unexpected joy, and learning that not understanding something can actually be part of the job.