Keynote: The Skolem Landscape

Speaker: Joël Ouaknine, Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, Saarbrücken, Germany

Tuesday, 13 December 2022, 14:00, Room 1Z56

Abstract: The Skolem Problem asks how to determine algorithmically whether a given linear recurrence sequence (such as the Fibonacci numbers) has a zero. It is a central question in dynamical systems and number theory, and has many connections to other branches of mathematics and computer science. Unfortunately, the decidability of the Skolem Problem has been open for nearly a century! In this talk, I will present a survey of what is known on this problem and related questions, including recent and ongoing developments.