Title:

But here I must deal with a misconception ... to the effect that if mathematics is the queen of the sciences, then the theory of numbers is, because of its supreme uselessness, the queen of mathematics ... G. H. Hardy

Abstract: The theory of numbers has repeatedly shown itself to be both beautiful and practical. This talk gives an example of this duality. We present a very efficient (and practical) algorithm for determining the period from a sparse set of noisy measurements. The theoretical justification rests on a (beautiful) probabilistic interpretation of the Riemann Zeta Function.