Simon Thomas : A Descriptive View of Geometric Group Theory

Posted by , part of the Departmental Colloquium.

At

Oct. 21, 2010, 3 p.m.

In

SEO 636

Abstract

Gromov's geometric group theory seeks to classify finitely generated groups in terms of the ``large scale'' geometry of their Cayley graphs. At first glance, this program appears to be even more difficult that that of classifying finitely generated groups up to isomorphism. In this talk, after introducing some of the basic notions of geometric group theory and descriptive set theory, I will consider the question of whether this is indeed the case.