MaPSS: Mathematical Postgraduate Seminar Series: James Diaz -- Handlebodies and the high-dimensional Poincare conjecture

Dear All, 

We are delighted to present the MaPSS Seminar topic of Monday 4th April; please see the
abstract below.  

**From this Semester the Seminar will always run on Monday, at 5:00pm in 535A** 

Following the talk, there will be pizza on offer.  

Speaker: James Diaz (Cambdridge University) 

Title: Handlebodies and the high-dimensional Poincare conjecture 

Abstract: The notion of a handlebody is a combinatorial way to describe a manifold,
analogous to the idea of a cell complex. One of the reasons they are useful is that
natural topological operations performed on handlebodies translate very directly to
algebraic operations performed on chain complexes, reducing problems in topology to
simple linear algebra. In this talk, we’ll explore some basic manipulations of
handlebodies and their links to algebraic invariants. Time permitting, we will
illustrate the power of this technique by outlining (a version of) Smale’s proof of
the high-dimensional Poincare conjecture.  

Some exposure to algebraic topology is helpful (in particular, familiarity with cell
complexes and cellular homology) but not assumed.  

Supervisors, please encourage your students to attend.  

Thanks,
MaPSS Organizers