Closing the Gap: the quest to understand prime numbers - Vicky Neale

Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures: Vicky Neale - Closing the Gap: the quest to understand prime numbers

Prime numbers have intrigued, inspired and infuriated mathematicians for millennia and yet mathematicians' difficulty with answering simple questions about them reveals their depth and subtlety.

Vicky Neale describes recent progress towards proving the famous Twin Primes Conjecture and explains the very different ways in which these breakthroughs have been made - a solo mathematician working in isolation, a young mathematician displaying creativity at the start of a career, a large collaboration that reveals much about how mathematicians go about their work.

Vicky Neale is Whitehead Lecturer at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford and Supernumerary Fellow at Balliol College. Her new book "Closing the Gap: the quest to understand prime numbers" has recently been published by Oxford University Press.