The Geometry of Minimal Surfaces

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Professor Blaine Lawson, Stony Brook University, USA
• Friday 21 May 2010, 12:00-13:00
• Cockcroft Lecture Theatre, New Museums Site.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact nobody.

A minimal surface in euclidean space is a surface which is locally of least area (that is, any perturbation on a small region will increase the area). These surfaces have captured the imagination of geometers and analysts from Riemann and Weierstrauss to the present day, where they have evolved to become an important tool in modern geometric analysis.

This lecture will give an introduction to the basic geometry of minimal surfaces in R³. Several of the classical theorems will be presented, and a large number of interesting examples (such as triply-periodic minimal surfaces) will be examined.

In the second part of the lecture I will discuss minimal surfaces in a more general context. Examples will include compact minimal surfaces of arbitrary genus in the euclidean 3-sphere S³, complex algebraic curves in complex projective space, and certain “calibrated” subvarieties. The problem of finding area-minimizing cycles in a given homology class will be discussed. I will then try to indicate the role played by minimal surfaces in modern geometry, topology and physics.

This talk is part of the Rouse Ball Lectures series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All CMS events
• All Talks (aka the CURE list)
• CMS Events
• Cockcroft Lecture Theatre, New Museums Site
• DPMMS info aggregator
• Faculty of Mathematics Lectures
• Rouse Ball Lectures
• SJC Regular Seminars
• School of Physical Sciences

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.