Back to Departmental Colloquium: Fall 1999
Departmental Colloquium
Date: Thursday, Oct 28, 1999
Time: 4:15PM
Location: JWB 335
John R. Stallings
Berkeley)
Title |
When is a group a free product? |
Abstract |
Free product in group theory, the non-abelian version of direct sum, has a geometric meaning in terms of fundamental groups. The question as to whether a given group can be written as a non-trivial free product has a few answers in specific cases; for instance, the fundamental group of a closed surface cannot be a non-trivial free product. By putting together results from the distant past, we can generalize this fact and ask more questions than give answers. |
Geometric Group Theory