141. The Language of the Universe

Ken Ono is a math prodigy whose skills have helped produce a Hollywood movie and made Olympic swimmers faster. The number theorist tells Steve why he sees mathematics as art — and about his unusual path to success, which came without a high school diploma.

SOURCE:Ken Ono • , professor of mathematics and STEM adviser to the provost at the University of Virginia.

RESOURCES: • " ‘Digital Twins’ Give Olympic Swimmers a Boost • ," by Katherine Douglass, Augustus Lamb, Jerry Lu, Ken Ono, and William Tenpas ( Scientific American, • 2024). • " Swimming in Data • ," by Katherine Douglass, Augustus Lamb, Jerry Lu, Ken Ono, and William Tenpas ( The Mathematical Intelligencer, • 2024). • " Integer Partitions Detect the Primes • ," by William Craig, Jan-Willem van Ittersum, and Ken Ono ( PNAS, • 2024). The Man Who Knew Infinity, • film by Matt Brown (2015). • " Proof of the Umbral Moonshine Conjecture • ," by John F. R. Duncan, Michael J. Griffin, and Ken Ono ( Research in the Mathematical Sciences, • 2015). • " Ramanujan's Ternary Quadratic Form • ," by Ken Ono and K. Soundararajan ( Inventiones Mathematicae, • 1997).

EXTRA: • " Richard Dawkins on God, Genes, and Murderous Baby Cuckoos • ," by People I (Mostly) Admire • (2024).