The Joint British Mathematical Colloquium / British Applied Mathematical Colloquium 2021 event has been rescheduled to Tuesday 6th April – Friday 9th April 2021 from 16:00 to 17:00 (BST), with the Society meeting taking place on April 8th.
LMS Lecture
Speaker: Ciprian Manolescu (Stanford)
Title: Khovanov homology and four-manifolds
Abstract: Over the last forty years, most progress in four-dimensional topology came from gauge theory and related invariants. Khovanov homology is an invariant of knots in of a different kind: its construction is combinatorial, and connected to ideas from representation theory. There is hope that it can tell us more about smooth 4-manifolds; for example, Freedman, Gompf, Morrison and Walker suggested a strategy to disprove the smooth 4D Poincare conjecture using Rasmussen's invariant from Khovanov homology. It is yet unclear whether their strategy can work, and I will explain some of its challenges. I will also review other topological applications of Khovanov homology, with regard to smoothly embedded surfaces in 4-manifolds.
The London Mathematical Society will also be present at the online exhibition during the BMC-BAMC. We would be delighted to welcome visitors to the LMS room, where details about LMS activities can be found and where LMS staff will be on hand to answer queries in real time during the breaks between lectures and sessions, as per the staff timetable here.
If you have any queries relating to the BMC-BAMC, please contact the organisers direct: bmcbamc@icms.org.uk
If you have any queries relating to Society Meetings, please email lmsmeetings@lms.ac.uk