Wednesday, October 8, 2025 |
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM CT
Lunt Hall, 105, 2033 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208 map it
Title: Exotic phenomena in dimension 4
Abstract: In favorable circumstances, topological 4-manifolds can be classified. In contrast, smooth 4-manifolds remain poorly understood. Several hard questions in 4-manifold topology boil down to asking whether there can be distinct smooth manifolds with the same topological type; such manifolds are called exotic. In this talk, I will discuss a few methods to produce exotic manifolds, and comment on how these methods might be adapted towards addressing some of these questions.