PIMS Distinguished Lecturer: Prof. Mladen Bestvina

Dates:

Monday, May 28, 3:00 pm

Wednesday, May 30, 3:00 pm

Location:

WMAX 110, 1933 West Mall

May 28:

Asymptotic dimension

Most of the talk will be an introduction to asymptotic dimension, a notion of dimension invariant under quasi-isometries. I will try to outline a proof of a recent result (joint with Bromberg and Fujiwara) that mapping class groups have finite asymptotic dimension.

May 30:

Second bounded cohomology

Most of the talk will be an introduction to (second) bounded cohomology of a discrete group. I will explain classical constructions of bounded cocycles and recent results (joint with Bromberg and Fujiwara) regarding mapping class groups and a construction of bounded cocycles with coefficients in an arbitrary unitary representation.

Bio:

Mladen Bestvina works in the area of geometric group theory. He is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Utah.

Bestvina is a three-time medalist at the International Mathematical Olympiad. He received the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship in 1988–89 and a Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1988–91. He gave an Invited Address at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Beijing in 2002, as well as a Unni Namboodiri Lecture in Geometry and Topology at the University of Chicago.

Bestvina received an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship and an NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1988. He gave an Invited Address at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Beijing in 2002, as well as the Unni Namboodiri Lectures in Geometry and Topology at the University of Chicago. He is an associate editor of the Annals of Mathematics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mladen_Bestvina).