Special Lecture: Dave Morrison (UCSB), 'Soap bubbles, the Hodge conjecture, and all that: finding good geometric representatives for topological...'

Event Date: 

Thursday, May 23, 2013 - 3:30pm to 4:30pm

Event Location: 

  • 6635 South Hall

Event Contact: 

Daryl Cooper
Email: cooper@math.ucsb.edu

Soap bubbles minimize area, and many of the beautiful aspects of minimal surface theory can be illustrated by dipping wire frames into soap solutions and observing the surface which forms. I will introduce the Hodge conjecture -- one of the Clay Foundation Millenium Prize Problems -- from a somewhat unconventional viewpoint, relating it to a generalization of the minimal surface problem to higher dimensional ambient spaces equipped with interesting geometric structures.