LMS Annual General Meeting

Programme

2.30 pm Opening of the meeting and LMS Business (open to all)

Election of the LMS Council in 2019

Award of the 2019 LMS Prize certificates

Members' vote on the proposed changes to the Charter, Statutes and By-Laws

Agenda and Papers (to be announced)

3.30 pm  Marc Lackenby (Oxford)  The complexity of knots

Abstract: In his final paper in 1954, Alan Turing said 'No systematic method is yet known by which one can tell whether two knots are the same.' Wolfgang Haken and Geoffrey Hemion discovered such a method over 20 years later. However, the computational complexity of this problem remains unknown. In other words, we do not know just how complicated knots are. In my talk, I will give a survey of some of the recent results in this area. Along the way, we will meet some hyperbolic geometry , the 'P ≠ NP' conjecture, and some very very big numbers.

4.30 pm Tea & Coffee

4.55 pm Election Results Announced.

5.00 pm  Presidential Address 2019: Caroline Series FRS (Warwick) All About the Riley Slice

Abstract: The Riley slice is the name given to the family of subgroups of   generated by two parabolic Möbius maps  and . Here c ≠0 is a parameter which ranges over the complex plane. Thanks to work of many people over many years, we now have very detailed understanding of this entire parameter space. It include groups which are free and discrete, but also many non-discrete groups. Among non-free discrete groups it includes all those which give rise to a hyperbolic structure on the complement of a two bridge knot. It also illustrates many of the major results of Thurston and his school. We will give a tour of the parameter space and the geometry of the groups in it, taking as our starting point the remarkable computer explorations made by Robert Riley in Southhampton in the 1970s, and comparing it to the picture discovered by myself and Linda Keen which shows the set of all free discrete groups foliated by rays which have a natural geometric interpretation.

The meeting will be followed by a reception and the LMS Annual Dinner at Goodenough College.

Registration: Registration is not required for the Annual General Meeting but it is useful for us to know numbers for catering so if you plan to attend, please do register.

LMS Annual Dinner: The Annual Dinner held at Goodenough College at 7.30 pm.  Tickets for the Society Dinner are £58.00 per person (payable in advance by cheque to "London Mathematical Society".  Please send cheques to LMS Society Dinner, c/o John Johnston, LMS, De Morgan House, 57-58 Russell Square, London, WC1B 4HS). To sign up for the Annual Dinner, please email John Johnston by 15 November 2019. If you have any special requirements (e.g. dietary, access), please let John know when registering.