LONDON TOPOLOGY SEMINAR: Winter Meeting 2000

An annual special winter meeting of this seminar is held jointly with
the Universities of Sussex and Southampton. Details for this year are 
as follows. 

The meeting will be at KCL on Friday 8 December, beginning at  2 pm or
earlier, depending on demand for short talk slots.  
                 
2 00 - 3 pm (in 436, Strand)  Short talks (one slot still vacant)  

2.00 - 2.25:           Lawrence Reeves (Oxford)

                      "A non-automatic free-by finite group"

2.30 - 2.55            Martin Bridson (Oxford)         

                      "Automorphisms of free groups, Helley's theorem 
                       and Serre's property FA"

[Abstract: Using a generalization of Helley's theorem, I shall prove 
fixed-point results, beginning with a new proof that Out(Fn) (hence
Aut(Fn) and SL(n,Z)) have Serre's property FA. The generalization of
Helley's Theorem has a remarkably easy proof.

3 15 pm (in 2C, Main Bldg.)

                       Joan Porti (UA, Barcelona) 
        
                      "Geometrization of 3-orbifolds

[Abstract: The most recent step in the Geometrization program for 
3-manifolds is the proof of Thurston's orbifold theorem. We shall 
discuss the proof, obtained together with M. Boileau and B. Leeb, 
and we will focus on the case where the group of the orbifold is 
finite, which has ben the last case to be solved. (Another proof 
has been obtained by D. Cooper, C. Hodgson and S. Kerckhoff).]


4 15 pm                 Tea and biscuits 

5 pm  (in 2C)           Brian Bowditch (Southampton)

                       "Ends of hyperbolic 3-manifolds"

[Abstract: We give a survey of old and new results relating to the 
topology of non-compact hyperbolic 3-manifolds with finitely 
generated fundamental group.
There are a number of interesting open problems, notably those of
Ahlfors and Thurston.  Important progress was has been made by
Bonahon, Minsky and many others on these questions.  We shall discuss 
an alternative approach to some of the work of Minsky which
promises some simplification and generalisation.]
 
There will be a Banquet for participants at a restaurant in Soho's
Chinatown (6.30pm for 7).  

NOTE:       
Slots are still available for short talks at this meeting;
please contact me (bill.harvey@kcl.ac.uk)
by Wednesday if you are interested in presenting one of these.

WJH
Dr. W. J. Harvey,  
Reader in Mathematics and PG Admissions Tutor, 
King's College London, 
Strand,
London WC2R 2LS.		Tel: (0)20 7848 2828   
                                Fax: (0)20 7848 2017