TRIANGLE GEOMETRY/TOPOLOGY SEMINAR

 

      FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT

 

 

DATE:               Friday, March 4, 2005                   

 

LOCATION:     Hempfield High School, Room 213 (directions attached)                

                           followed by dinner at a place to be determined.

 

4:30 TALK:       Michael McCooey, F&M College

 

               "Free symmetry ranks of spheres and products of spheres"  

              

ABSTRACT:     This will be an expository talk by a non-expert on the question of

                           which finite groups G can act freely on the manifolds S^n, (S^n)^k and

                           S^{n_1} x ... x S^{n_k}.  In the first two cases, the question has been     

                           well explored, and the answer depends primarily on the rank of G, where

                           rk(G) = max_{n \in N} (for some prime p)(Z_p)^n \subset G.  I was led

                           to explore aspects of the third question last spring, and learned about

                           an (old) example showing the situation to be more complicated than I had

                           originally guessed.   

 

                           I expect to discuss, or at least mention, results of Smith, Milnor, Adem,

                           Browder, Carlsson and Oliver, among others (but probably not McCooey).

 

 

 

     EVERYONE WELCOME

 

       PLEASE FORWARD THIS ANNOUNCEMENT TO ANYONE INTERESTED

 

 

           The Triangle Geometry/Topology Seminar is sponsored jointly by

  Elizabethtown College, Franklin & Marshall College and Millersville University.