Charles R. DePrima Memorial Lecture in Mathematics

In his 1920 deathbed letter to Hardy, Ramanujan introduced mock theta functions with a tantalizing yet incomplete definition. Spurred by breakthroughs over the last twenty years, we will discuss two central questions in this talk aimed at undergraduates: What is a mock theta function? And what can be gained by perturbing the beautiful, infinite symmetries possessed by classical modular forms? Along the way, we will mention connections to number theory, combinatorics, and topology, leading to even more intriguing questions.