Steven Boyer (UQAM)

Math & Stats Department Colloquium

Friday, January 26th, 2023

Time: 2:30 p.m.  Place: Jeffery Hall, Room 234

Speaker: Steven Boyer (UQAM)

Title: The ADE Link Conjecture

Abstract: The Dynkin diagrams of types A, D and E form a meta-pattern in mathematics in that they structure a number of seemingly unrelated classification problems. In this talk we will survey the current state of knowledge concerning the ADE Link Conjecture, a modest addition to this list which relates the topology of links in the 3-sphere arising from algebraic curves in C2 to ordered groups, taut foliations and Floer homology. This is joint work with Michel Boileau, Cameron Gordon, and Ying Hu.

Bio: Steven Boyer is a Professor of Mathematics at the Universit´e du Qu´ebec `a Montr´eal. He obtained his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1983. After two years as an NSERC postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge, he worked at the University of Toronto before moving to UQ`AM in 1987. He has held many visiting positions in France, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, and has served on the editorial boards of the Canadian Journal of Mathematics, the Canadian Mathematics Bulletin, and the Annales Math´ematiques Blaise Pascal. Currently he is a member of the editorial boards of Algebraic and Geometric Topology and the Annales des sciences math´ematiques du Qu´ebec. He is also the director of CIRGET in Montr´eal. His research area is the topology and geometry of low-dimensional manifolds.