THEMATIC PROGRAM

March 28, 2024

Spring 2006
Thematic Program on Holomorphic Dynamics, Laminations, and Hyperbolic Geometry

Coxeter Lecture Series


 

March 27-29, 2006 -- 2:10 p.m.
All Lectures at the Fields Institute, Room 230

Yair Minsky (Yale)

Curve complexes, surfaces and 3-manifolds

The curve complex of a surface is a simplicial complex whose structure encodes the disjointness relation among essentially embedded circles. It is elementary to define but difficult to analyze, and has recently played a central role in the solution of problems in hyperbolic geometry, topology of 3-manifolds, and mapping class groups of surfaces. I will survey these developments and try to give a feeling for the kind of tools that they involve, and the kind of open problems which remain.

The Fields Institute Coxeter Lecture Series (CLS) brings a leading mathematician to the Institute to give a series of three lectures in the field of the current thematic program. The first talk is an overview for a general mathematical audience, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students. The other two talks are chosen, in collaboration with the organizers of the thematic program, to target specialists in the field.

 

Index of Fields Distinguished and Coxeter Lectures.