A few helpful interventions from baby algebraic geometry to “hard Erdős questions”
3:30PM, 23 Jul 2025
Prof. Rudnev from the University of Bristol reveals how algebraic geometry helped to settle a famous discrete geometry conjecture of Erdős.
Prof. Misha Rudnev explains how the long-standing Erdős distinct distance conjecture was resolved in 2010 by Larry Guth and Nets Katz using a combination of tools that were well beyond earlier approaches. Reviewing the methodology, which drew on 19th-century geometry and early 20th-century algebraic topology, Prof. Rudnev discusses some results and a plethora of still wide open questions that followed from their work.
Prof. Misha Rudnev is a professor of mathematics at the University of Bristol. He studied applied mathematics and physics at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute and did his PhD at Caltech. His research focuses on problems in geometric, arithmetic and additive combinatorics.
