
Welcome to Pure Mathematics
We are home to 30 faculty, four staff, approximately 60 graduate students, several research visitors, and numerous undergraduate students. We offer exciting and challenging programs leading to BMath, MMath and PhD degrees. We nurture a very active research environment and are intensely devoted to both ground-breaking research and excellent teaching.
News
Two Pure Math professors win Outstanding Performance Awards
The awards are given each year to faculty members across the University of Waterloo who demonstrate excellence in teaching and research.
Pure Math PhD student wins Amit and Meena Chakma Award for Exceptional Teaching
The award ($1000), which is given to up to four recipients annually, recognizes excellence in teaching by students, including intellectual vigour, skill in communication and presentation of subject matter, and concern for the needs of students.
Spring 2023 Graduands
Congratulations to Clement Wan, MMath and Eric Boulter, PhD, who convocated in Spring 2023. Best of luck in your future endeavours!
Events
Model Theory Working Seminar
Christine Eagles, University of Waterloo
The Zilber dichotomy in DCF_m II
We continue to read Omar Le\'on S\'anchez' paper on the Zilber dichotomy in partial differentially closed fields
MC 5403
Number Theory Seminar
Habiba Kadiri, University of Lethbridge
An explicit version of Chebotarev’s Density Theorem.
This talk will first provide a (non-exhaustive) survey of explicit results on zero-free regions and zero densities of the Riemann zeta function and their relationship to error terms in the prime number theorem. This will be extended to Dirichlet L functions and Dedekind zeta functions, where new challenges arise with potential exceptional zeros. We will explore estimates for the error terms for prime counting functions across various contexts, with a specific attention to number fields. Chebotarev’s density theorem states that prime ideals are equidistributed among the conjugacy classes of the Galois group of any normal extension of number fields. An effective version of this theorem was first established by Lagarias and Odlyzko in 1977. In this article, we present an explicit refinement of their result. Key aspects of our approach include using the following: smoothing functions, recently established zero-free regions and zero-counting formula for zeros of the Dedekind zeta function, and sharp bounds for Bessel-type integrals. This is joint wok with Sourabh Das and Nathan Ng.
MC 2034
Number Theory Seminar
William Verreault, University of Toronto
On the minimal length of addition chains
An addition chain is a sequence of increasing numbers, starting with 1 and ending with n, such that each number is the sum of two previous ones in the sequence. A challenging problem is, given a positive integer n, to find the minimal length of an addition chain leading to n. I will present bounds on the distribution function of this minimal length, which are sharp up to a small constant. This is joint work with Jean-Marie De Koninck and Nicolas Doyon.
MC 2034