What Can We Make Out of Lines and Circles?
- Speaker
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János Kollár, Ph.D.Donner Professor of Science and Professor of Mathematics, Princeton University
Presidential Lectures are free public colloquia centered on four main themes: Biology, Physics, Mathematics and Computer Science, and Neuroscience and Autism Science. These curated, high-level scientific talks feature leading scientists and mathematicians and are intended to foster discourse and drive discovery among the broader NYC-area research community. We invite those interested in the topic to join us for this weekly lecture series.
In 1880, French mathematician Jean Gaston Darboux started a project enumerating the various surfaces that can be made using grids of lines, circles or cross-sections of cones. Many examples of these surfaces appear in art and architecture. Mathematicians today have a complete list of the possible surfaces.
In this lecture, János Kollár will discuss how those ideas can be extended to higher dimensions, leading to fruitful questions about algebraic varieties with connections to number theory and symplectic geometry.