Hello everyone,
The mathematics department will be hosting Jennifer Hom as our Distinguished Women in Mathematics Colloquium speaker. A full announcement on that will be sent out on Monday. In preparation for her visit, our own Jonathan Johnson will be giving a warm-up talk at 3:30 pm in MSCS 114 today:
Title: Unknotting Numbers and Knot Floer Homology
Abstract: The unknotting number is a very natural and classical invariant of a knot. Despite this, this invariant is not well understood. For example, it is an open question how unknotting numbers behave under basic knot operations such as the connect sum and satellite operations. Floer homology has provide a suite of new invariants for 3-maifolds which has provided new techniques to study classical problems in knot theory. In preparation for next week's colloquium talk by Jennifer Hom, we will define knot Floer homology and discuss how it has been used to study unknotting numbers.
Events next week:
12:30 -1:30 Lunch and panel discussion with Jennifer Hom in MSCS 523 (all are welcome, but RSVP to neil.r.hoffman@okstate.edu with your dietary preferences and restrictions if you would like a lunch provided)
4-5 - Topology seminar in MSCS 514 - Speaker Jennifer Hom
3:30 -4:30 Distinguished Women in Mathematics Colloquium- MSCS 101 - Speaker Jennifer Hom (refreshments to follow)
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Neil R. Hoffman Assistant Professor Department of Mathematics 523 Math Science Building Oklahoma State University Stillwater, OK 74078-1058 405-744-7791 http://math.okstate.edu/people/nhoffman