University of Georgia
Department of Mathematics

Seminar Schedule
November 3 - November 7, 2003

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

MONDAY, November 3, 2003

Numerical Analysis
1:30p.m., Room 524
Speaker: Ming-Jun Lai, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Domain Decomposition Techniques for Scattered Data Interpolation and Fitting (Cont.)

Geometry
1:30p.m., Room 410
No Meeting this week

Topology
2:30p.m., Room 322
Speaker: Clint McCrory, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Stiefel-Whitney Classes: From Surfaces to Toric Varieties
Abstract: I'll discuss Stiefel's combinatorial formula and Whitney's characteristic singularity cycles, which are common threads of my work with Tom Banchoff over thirty years. I will explain some of my favorite topics: singularities and the Euler characteristic, combinatorial Steenrod homology operations, binocular visual topology of surfaces, and cusps of Gauss maps. I'll conclude with a new version of Stiefel's formula for toric varieties.

VIGRE - Algebra Seminar
2:30p.m., Room 410
Organizer: Daniel Nakano, University of Georgia
Activity: We will work on checking the data in our tables. We will also discuss plans for bad primes and some of the details in our write up.

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

Lie Theory
3:30p.m., Room 303
No Meeting this week

TUESDAY, November 4, 2003

VIGRE Graduate Student Seminar
2:00-3:15pm, Room 304
Speaker: Elham Izadi, University of Georgia
Title of talk: An introduction to the Hodge conjecture
Abstract: This is a warm up for my talk in the algebraic geometry seminar on Wednesday, aiming to make the Wednesday talk accessible to a larger audience. The Hodge conjecture is one of the most famous conjectures of algebraic geometry. It says, very roughly, that algebraic varieties have "a lot" of subvarieties, or, dually, that their cohomologies have very few Hodge substructures. I will give as elementary an introduction as possible to this "million-dollar" conjecture, explaining, in particular, the meanings of some of the words in the previous sentence. If time permits, I will breach the subject of the Wednesday talk, i.e., the case of abelian varieties.

Analysis
3:30p.m., Room 326
Speaker: TBA
Title of talk: TBA

Math Club Meeting
3:30p.m., Room 328
Speaker: Robert VanBrackle from General Electric
Title of talk: A Glimpse of Mathematics and the Business World

WEDNESDAY, November 5, 2003

Group Representation & Cohomology
2:30p.m., Room 410
Speaker: Dan Nakano, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Varieties for modules for Lie algebras, and the null cone

Algebraic Geometry
2:30pm, Room 303
Speaker: Elham Izadi, University of Georgia
Title of talk: On the Hodge conjecture for abelian varieties
Abstract: This is going to be a continuation of the VIGRE talk on the $1-million problem. I will discuss the subject of the title, with particular emphasis on abelian varieties with an action of an imaginary quadratic field. In this case I will outline a possible approach for abelian varieties which birationally contain a product. I will show how, in dimensions 3,4 and 5 at least, all principally polarized abelian varieties do birationally
contain products.

Faculty and Graduate Social
3:00pm, Room 409
Coffee, Cookies, Tea

Number Theory/Arithmetic Geometry
3:45pm, Room 304 **Note permanent time change**
No Meeting this week

THURSDAY, November 6, 2003

7-Year Review Committee Schedule

VIGRE - Contact Topology
9:00a.m., Room 326

VIGRE Quantum Mechanics Seminar
2:00p.m., Room 303
Speaker: Chao Zhuang, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Solving the Schroedinger equation for the hydrogen atom, part 1

Student Number Theory
3:30p.m., Room 304
Speaker: Bree Ettinger, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Real life problems in RSA encryption

FRIDAY, November 7, 2003

7-Year Review Committee Schedule

CATS
1:25p.m., Room 306
Speaker: TBA
Title of talk: TBA

Wavelet Analysis
2:30p.m., Room 524
No Meeting this week