Subtly knotted surfaces

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Abstract

Classical knot theory studies the properties of embedded circles in 3-space. Once one moves up to embeddings of surfaces in four-dimensional manifolds, things get surprisingly complex. For example, there are surfaces that are topologically isotopic, but not smoothly isotopic. This talk will demonstrate that this behavior is ubiquitous with examples of topologically equivalent, but very far apart as measured by the number of one of two natural moves between smoothly embedded surfaces.

Bio
https://www.math.ksu.edu/~dav/

Description

Geometry and Topology Seminar
Friday, November 1
12:00 pm MST/AZ
WXLR A309

Speaker

Dave Auckly
Kansas State University

 

Location
WXLR A309