Seminar Schedule
April 18 - 22, 2005

All Seminars are held in Boyd Graduate Studies Bldg. unless otherwise noted.

MONDAY, April 18, 2005

Algebra
2:30 – 3:30p.m., Room 410
Joint meeting with VIGRE-Algebra, please see Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Faculty and Graduate Social
3:00 p.m., Room 409
Coffee, Cookies, Tea

Topology
3:30-4:30p.m., Room 326
Speaker: Ken Baker, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Ozsvath-Szabo invariants (cont)

CATS
4:40-5:30p.m., Room 306
Speaker: TBA
Title of talk: TBA


TUESDAY, April 19, 2005

VIGRE Graduate Student Seminar
2:00p.m., Room 304
Speaker: Nadia Masri, U. of Illinois
Title: The Congruent Number Problem
Abstract: We say n is a congruent number if it is the area of a right triangle with sides all rational numbers. Can we find an effective algorithm that will tell us when n is congruent? A very nice characterization of such numbers was proven by J. Tunnell in 1983. While the problem is classical and easy to describe, Tunnell's theorem relied upon modern mathematical ideas such as the relationship between elliptic curves and modular forms, and the Burch-Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture. I will talk about the congruent number problem and its relation to these topics.

Dynamics on Berkovich Space
2:30pm Room 326
Please see Thursday, April 21, 2005


WEDNESDAY, April 20, 2005

Spline Analysis
1:30-2:30pm, Room 326
Speaker: Jianbao Wu, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Navier-Stokes equations on the sphere, continued

VIGRE – Cardiac Physiology
2:30p.m., Room 640

Algebraic Geometry
2:30p.m., Room 410
Speaker: Joe Fu, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Operations on unitary valuations, continued

Faculty and Graduate Social
3:00 p.m., Room 409
Coffee, Cookies, Tea

VIGRE-Algebra
3:30-4:30pm, Room 303
Speaker: Jon Kujawa, University of Georgia
Title of talk: A Lie theoretic approach to the symmetric group.
Abstract: We will give an introduction to a revolutionary approach to the representation theory of the symmetric group. The basic idea is to take advantage of the fact that S_{n-1} is naturally a subgroup of S_{n}. What is surprising is that this leads us into weight spaces and other familiar tools from Lie theory.

Number Theory
3:45-5:15pm, Room 304
No Meeting this week

THURSDAY, April 21, 2005

VIGRE – Algebraic Geometry
2:00p.m., Room 304

Berkovich Spaces
3:30p.m., Room 303
Speaker: Juan Rivera-Letelier will give a lecture on dynamics on Berkovich spaces

FRIDAY, April 22, 2005

Geometry
2:30p.m., Room 326
Speaker: Ted Shifrin, University of Georgia
Title: A surface with no twisting curves must be R^2 or S^2
Abstract: This is an informal talk on a theorem of Scherrer from 1940 that says that if all the closed curves on a surface have total twist zero, the surface must be a plane or a sphere.

The proof I've figured out uses the first variation of the integral and moving frames and the structure equations. This should be accessible to grad students.

Joint Analysis
3:30p.m., Room 303
Speaker: Jingzhi Tie, University of Georgia
Title of talk: The twisted Laplacian on $R^{2n}$ and the sub-Laplacian on the Heisenberg group.
Abstract: I will derive the fundamental solution and the heat kernel of the twisted Laplacian via its connection with the sub-Laplacian on the Heisenberg group. I will also discuss the wave kernel if time permits. In some sense, this is an introduction talk for ProfessorWong's Colloquium talk on April 28.

Wavelet Analysis
3:30-4:30p.m., Room 322
Speaker: Haipeng Liu, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Compactly supported prewavelets in Sobolev spaces, continued

VIGRE – Clifford Algebras
3:30-4:45p.m. Room 302