ITHACA, N.Y. -- Some researchers think all problems can be resolved, given a sufficiently large and fast computer. Other researchers believe that computers are inherently inexact, and the results produced by machines cannot be trusted.

Somewhere in the middle is a narrow band of academics who fit snugly between these two schools of thought. To explain, Warwick Tucker, the H.C. Wang Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Cornell, will talk on "Using a Computer to do Rigorous Mathematics," at the third annual Mathematics Awareness Month public lecture on Saturday, April 6, at 1:30 p.m. in 251 Malott Hall on campus. The public is invited to attend the talk without charge, and no calculus or advanced mathematics are required for understanding the subject.

The lecture also focuses on the impact computers have on mathematics itself. While mathematics has had an important role in the development of computers, it is the role of computers in mathematics that has become a subtle and controversial issue.

Tucker received his Ph.D. in 1998 from Uppsala University, Sweden, defending a thesis in which he proved for the first time that the "Lorenz attractor," a famous mathematical model in meteorology and one of the first examples of chaos theory, actually exists. He was awarded the Wallenberg Prize in 2001 by the Swedish Mathematical Society for this work.

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