Tuesday February 19,  **4 PM** in Roop 103, tea at 3:45

Dr. Rebecca Field, Reed College

Groups as twisted products of spheres

ABSTRACT:  In this talk, I will explain the shape of the group of n x n invertible complex matrices.  It will turn out that this is almost a product of a circle and a 3-sphere and a 5-sphere etc..  The reason for this and the precise ways it differs from a product summarizes much contemporary research in algebraic topology.