Abstract: Starting from Euler's formula for planar graphs, we will sketch how topology has developed over close to 4 centuries now. We will focus mainly on dimensions 1, 2, and 3 with short excursions to 4 and higher dimensions.
About the speaker: Professor Mahan Mj is Dean and a faculty member at School of Mathematics, TIFR, Mumbai. He completed his PhD from UC Berkeley in 1997. He is the recipient of the 2011 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Mathematical Sciences and the 2015 Infosys Prize for Mathematical Sciences. He is best known for his work in hyperbolic geometry, geometric group theory, low-dimensional topology and complex geometry. His most notable work is the proof of the existence of Cannon–Thurston maps. This led to the resolution of the conjecture that connected limit sets of finitely generated Kleinian groups are locally connected. He is also the author of the book titled, Maps on Boundaries of Hyperbolic Metric Spaces.
