{"677713":{"#nid":"677713","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Mathematician Alexander Dunn Awarded the 2024 SASTRA Ramanujan Prize","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003EAssistant Professor in the School of Mathematics\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/alexjdunn.weebly.com\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAlexander Dunn\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E has been honored for his contributions to the field of mathematics by the\u0026nbsp;Shanmugha Arts, Science, Technology, and Research Academy (SASTRA). The prize is awarded annually to an outstanding individual under the age of 33 whose contributions are broadly influenced by the work of Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003E\u201cI am both deeply honored and thrilled to receive the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize,\u201d says Dunn, whose research centers on analytic number theory as well as automorphic\/metaplectic forms and their connections to prime numbers and integer partitions. \u201cRamanujan\u2019s work has had surprising and profound influences over my research, and I hope that this is the case for the future.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/math.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Mathematics\u003C\/a\u003E Chair\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/math.gatech.edu\/people\/michael-wolf\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMichael Wolf\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E says the honor is remarkable: \u201cThe award celebrates breakthrough work of Alex and his collaborator in the past few years. But especially given the list of previous winners, many of whom went on from this award for young people to become the most recognized of their generation, it also shows the promise that Alex has for important impactful work in the future. We couldn\u0027t be happier that he agreed to join our faculty last year.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch3\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESolving a 19th-century mystery\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h3\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003EThe\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sas.sastra.edu\/ramanujan\/Ramanujan-Awards.php\u0022\u003ESASTRA Ramanujan Prize\u003C\/a\u003E was awarded in recognition of Dunn\u2019s work in solving the Kummer-Patterson Conjecture on the distribution of cubic Gauss sums, work he began while a postdoctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology. Dunn collaborated with Mathematics Professor\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.math.northwestern.edu\/people\/faculty\/maksym-radziwill.html\u0022\u003EMaksym Radziwill\u003C\/a\u003E to write a conditional proof on the Conjecture, which explains a\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.quantamagazine.org\/a-numerical-mystery-from-the-19th-century-finally-gets-solved-20220815\/\u0022\u003Emathematical mystery\u003C\/a\u003E about bias, or non-randomness, in the pattern of sums involving prime numbers. Their\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/annals.math.princeton.edu\/articles\/21550\u0022\u003Epaper\u003C\/a\u003E, which has been accepted for publication in the journal\u0026nbsp;\u003Cem\u003EAnnals of Mathematics\u003C\/em\u003E, represents a significant breakthrough in the field of analytic number theory.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003EDunn and Radziwill\u2019s conditional proof comes nearly two centuries after the German mathematician Ernst Kummer first examined the distribution of cubic Gauss sums for the first 45 nontrivial primes. In 1846, Kummer discovered a bias\u0026nbsp;\u2014 specifically, a clustering of the sums along the positive side of the number line\u0026nbsp;\u2014 instead of a more even distribution. However, subsequent researchers using early computers to calculate larger samples of sums did not replicate this bias.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003EThen, in 1978, Samuel Patterson proposed that the bias could be \u201coverwhelmed\u201d in a larger sample size, resulting in the apparently uniform distribution that early computers had shown. The proof written by Dunn and Radziwill serves to both explain the bias observed by Kummer and confirm Patterson\u2019s conjecture, solving a nearly two-century-old mystery.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch5\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbout Alexander Dunn\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h5\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003EDunn, who joined the College as a faculty member last year, graduated with a Bachelor of Science with honors from the University of Queensland in Australia, receiving the University Medal for his academic performance. He obtained a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was awarded the\u0026nbsp;Paul T. Bateman Fellowship in Number Theory to write his dissertation and the Bateman Prize in Number Theory for his thesis. During 2020-23, Dunn served as the Olga Taussky and John Todd Instructor in Mathematics at the California Institute of Technology. In the spring of 2021, he was a Junior Fellow at the Institut Mittag-Leffler Institute in Sweden.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch5\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbout the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h5\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003EEstablished in 2005 by the Shanmugha Arts, Science, Technology, and Research Academy (SASTRA), the\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003ESASTRA Ramanujan Prize\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003Eis an annual award bestowed to mathematicians aged 32 and younger who have made outstanding contributions to the field. The award, which was named after the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, includes a $10,000 prize.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch5\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbout Georgia Tech\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h5\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/a\u003E, or Georgia Tech, is one of the top public research universities in the U.S., developing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. The Institute offers\u202fbusiness, computing, design, engineering, liberal arts,\u202fand\u202f sciences degrees. Its more than 47,000 undergraduate and graduate students represent 54 U.S. states and territories and more than 143 countries. They study at the main campus in Atlanta, at instructional sites around the world, or through distance and online learning. As a leading technological university, Georgia Tech is an engine of economic development for Georgia, the Southeast, and the nation, conducting more than $1 billion in research annually for government, industry, and society.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESchool of Mathematics Assistant Professor Alexander Dunn has been honored for his contributions to the field of mathematics, particularly his work solving the Kummer-Patterson Conjecture on the distribution of cubic Gauss sums.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"School of Mathematics Assistant Professor Alexander Dunn has been honored for his contributions to the field of mathematics, particularly his work solving the Kummer-Patterson Conjecture on the distribution of cubic Gauss sums. "}],"uid":"36583","created_gmt":"2024-10-17 20:47:39","changed_gmt":"2024-12-04 20:52:04","author":"lvidal7","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2024-10-18T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2024-10-18T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"675355":{"id":"675355","type":"image","title":"Alexander Dunn (Credit: Caltech)","body":null,"created":"1729198070","gmt_created":"2024-10-17 20:47:50","changed":"1729198070","gmt_changed":"2024-10-17 20:47:50","alt":"Alexander Dunn (Credit: Caltech)","file":{"fid":"258968","name":"Dunn_Alexander-PostdoctoralScholar-PMA-19-WEB.width-600.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2024\/10\/17\/Dunn_Alexander-PostdoctoralScholar-PMA-19-WEB.width-600.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2024\/10\/17\/Dunn_Alexander-PostdoctoralScholar-PMA-19-WEB.width-600.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":41257,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2024\/10\/17\/Dunn_Alexander-PostdoctoralScholar-PMA-19-WEB.width-600.jpg?itok=us9CJ7SI"}}},"media_ids":["675355"],"groups":[{"id":"1278","name":"College of Sciences"},{"id":"1279","name":"School of Mathematics"}],"categories":[{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[{"id":"4896","name":"College of Sciences"},{"id":"168854","name":"School of Mathematics"},{"id":"194037","name":"SASTRA Ramanujan Prize"},{"id":"192249","name":"cos-community"},{"id":"194038","name":"number theory"},{"id":"173647","name":"_for_math_site_"},{"id":"193733","name":"_for_math_site_manual_feed_"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELindsay C. Vidal\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EAssistant Director of Communications\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003ECollege of Sciences\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["lvidal7@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}