Feynman's sunshine numbers

Abstract

This is an expansion of a talk for mathematics and physics students of the Manchester Grammar and Manchester High Schools. It deals with numbers such as the Riemann zeta value zeta(3)=sum_{n>0}1/n^3. Zeta values appear in the description of sunshine and of relics from the Big Bang. They also result from Feynman diagrams, which occur in the quantum field theory of fundamental particles such as photons, electrons and positrons. My talk included 7 reasonably simple problems, for which I here add solutions, with further details of their context.