Source: Science Daily
Mathematicians prove the Umbral Moonshine Conjecture
Date: December 15, 2014
Source: Emory University
Summary: Monstrous moonshine, a quirky pattern of the monster group in theoretical math, has a shadow — umbral moonshine. Mathematicians have now proved this insight, known as the Umbral Moonshine Conjecture, offering a formula with potential applications for everything from number theory to geometry to quantum physics.
“We’ve transformed the statement of the conjecture into something you could test, a finite calculation, and the conjecture proved to be true,” says Ken Ono, a mathematician at Emory University. “Umbral moonshine has created a lot of excitement in the world of math and physics.”
Co-authors of the proof include mathematicians John Duncan from Case Western University and Michael Griffin, an Emory graduate student.
“Sometimes a result is so stunningly beautiful that your mind does get blown a little,” Duncan says. Duncan co-wrote the statement for the Umbral Moonshine Conjecture with Miranda Cheng, a mathematician and physicist at the University of Amsterdam, and Jeff Harvey, a physicist at the University of Chicago.
Ono will present their work on January 11, 2015 at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Antonio, the largest mathematics meeting in the world. Ono is delivering one of the highlighted invited addresses.
Read more at: Science Daily
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Moonshine beyond the Monster: The Bridge Connecting Algebra, Modular Forms and Physics (Cambridge Monographs on Mathematical Physics)
Review
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R.E. Boucherds, University of California at Berkeley for the Bulletin of the AMS
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Fernando Q. Gouvea, MAA Reviews
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