Number theory comes with many more elementary questions than we can currently answer. Professor Stevenhagen will present some classical Pythagorean problems and devise various more or less intelligent ways to solve them. The more intelligent ways have the pleasing property that they are fun to apply, and that they can be used for other problems as well. Nevertheless, we will find that even after 2500 years, there is still a lot out there that we cannot do.
Peter Stevenhagen graduated from the Universiteit van Amsterdam in 1985, and received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 1988. He set up a number theory group in Amsterdam before his appointment earlier this year to the University Leiden, the oldest university in the Netherlands, founded in 1575. Besides his research papers in algebraic number theory, Peter has written several highly acclaimed popular articles on number theoretic topics.