The public lecture “Mathematics is needed for almost everyone” has been given by Prof. Endre Szemeredi (Rutgers University, USA; Abel Prize 2012) on July 28, 2014 at VIASM.

Prof. Endre Szemeredi is a famous Hungarian mathematician. He is well – known for the Szemeredi’s theorem. This became one of the main ingredients in the proof of Ben Green and Terence Tao theorem which states that the prime contain arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions.

In the lecture, he talked about the tradition in the education of mathematics for interested highschool students in more than 120 years in Hungary. The mathematical activities include a highschool journal specialized in mathematics and physics aimed at a large number of students. The journal poses 8 problems every month to be solved and sent in by the students for evaluation by the editorial board. He also gave some examples and talk about a new initiative of organizing mathematical oriented competitions combined with hiking and different physical activities.

The lecture attracted more than 60 participants, including 30 students from VNU-University of Science, Hanoi University of Science and Technology and Hanoi National University of Education.