Title: The Calculus of Symmetry
Speaker: Professor Shmuel Weinberger
Speaker Info: University of Chicago
Brief Description:
Special Note:
Abstract:
Although surgery theory gives a quite reasonable framework for studying the classification of high dimensional manifolds, there are a few good reasons why this ideology fails for high dimensional group actions. I will try to draw some pictures to explain where the difficulties seem to come from, and how some very general categorical ideas seem to have the power to overcome these (at least sometimes). All general theorems will be illustrated in the situation of concrete actions on manifolds of constant curvature (like the sphere or the torus).Date: Wednesday, January 8, 2003