University of Georgia
Department of Mathematics

Seminar Schedule
September 26 – September 30, 2005
All Seminars are held in Boyd Graduate Studies Bldg. unless otherwise noted.

MONDAY, September 26, 2005

Topology/Geometry
2:30-4:30pm, Room 303
No Meeting this week

Algebra
2:30-3:30pm., Room 410
Speaker: Jon Carlson, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Counting Blocks, Part II

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

TUESDAY, September 27, 2005

VIGRE-Graduate Student Seminar
2:00p.m., Room 303
Speaker: Ed Azoff, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Universal objects in analysis
Abstract: We are used to gaining insight into complicated objects by resolving them into simpler components. For example, the Jordan canonical form theorem reduces the study of arbitrary n by n complex matrices to the study of direct sums of simple Jordan blocks. In this talk, we will discuss three "universal" constructions which go in the opposite direction:
(1) an open set in the plane which is universal in the sense that every open subset of R occurs as one of its vertical sections,
(2) a construction of C. Rota to the effect that there is a simplest operator (=linear transformation) acting on an infinite dimensional space in which all "reasonable" operators can be embedded,
(3) a simple block matrix construction embeds every linear space S of operators in a commutative operator algebra A; a 1985 refinement due to W. Wogen tells us that we can even take A to be singly generated.

These are "spoiler" results. For example, (1) can be used to produce a subset of R which is not the countable union of countable intersections of open sets. Similarly, we will bootstrap clever choices of S in (3) to produce some very pathological operators.

WEDNESDAY, September 28, 2005

Algebraic Geometry
2:30-3:45pm, Room 410
No Meeting this week

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

Number Theory
3:30p.m., Room 304
Speaker: Patrick Corn, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Del Pezzo surfaces and the Brauer-Manin obstruction, part 4
Abstract: We will define cyclic algebras and see how to use these to compute the Brauer-Manin obstruction on cubic surfaces. Hopefully we will also discuss some analogous results about Del Pezzo surfaces of degree 2.

VIGRE-Algebra Group
3:45p.m., Room 302
Speakers: Brian Boe, Lenny Chastkofsky, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Cohomology calculations with MAGMA

THURSDAY, September 29, 2005

VIGRE-Feynman Diagrams
2:00pm, Room 326

VIGRE Algebraic Geometry Group
3:30 pm in room 323

Job Application Workshop
3:30-4:30, Room 304
During this workshop we will discuss strategies for applying for academic jobs and other aspects in the process of searching for university jobs in the US. Graduate students and postdocs are especially encouraged to attend.

FRIDAY, September 30, 2005

Probability Theory
2:30pm, Room 303
Speaker: Chao Zhuang, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Pricing Risk of Default