SMMG
"Fun with Farey Fractions"
featuring Dr. Michael Kelly
On May 10, 2014, for our last event of the semester, Dr. Michael Kelly brought us back to the question that for many mathematicians started it all: What's a whole number? But we didn't stay there for long. After a whirlwind tour of the prime numbers, we started seeing primes everywhere—even in the everyday task of reducing fractions.
We soon learned that reduced fractions aren't so everyday after all. When you look at them in the right way, they fall into a perplexing pattern with deep connections to number theory. With our confusion mounting as the denominators grew, we realized it would take a lot of work to dig some order out of the chaos.
