Date: 6 November 2015, 4:30pm
Location: Hempfield High School, Room 213
 Speaker: David Futer, Temple University
   Title: Effective hyperbolic geometry

Abstract. Powerful theorems of Thurston, Perelman, and Mostow
tell us that almost every 3-dimensional manifold admits a hyperbolic
metric, and that this metric is unique. Thus, in principle, there is a
1-to-1 correspondence between a combinatorial description of a
3-manifold and its geometry. The existence of this 1-to-1 correspondence
has been known, at least conjecturally, for over 30 years. On the other
hand, only in the last few years have we begun to see the outlines of a
concrete dictionary between combinatorial features and geometric
measurements. I will survey some of what is known and unknown, paying
special attention to the problem of estimating the volume of a knot
complement in the 3-sphere.