This event is free and open to the public.

Date: Tuesday 19 July
Time: 18:00-19:00
Location: JH Michell Theatre, Richard Berry Building, University of Melbourne

Professor Danny Calegari is the Richard Merkin Professor of Mathematics at the California Institute of Technology, and is one of the recipients of the 2009 Clay Research Award for his work in geometric topology and geometric group theory.

The shape of the internet

Thinking is done by humans, and human brains are good at some things and not others. Because of our highly developed spatial awareness, we are good at thinking geometrically - in fact "to perceive" is literally "to see". Mathematics lets us translate abstract networks of relations - for example, the links between webpages - into geometry; and this opens the door to quantification and analysis. In this talk I will try to explain some of the tools mathematicians use to accomplish this translation, and discuss a few examples.

The lecture is part of Hyamfest: Geometry & Topology Down Under in honour of Hyam Rubinstein.