School of Mathematical Sciences

Events on Friday 20 April 2012

New examples of totally disconnected, locally compact groups

13:10 Fri 20 Apr 12 :: B.20 Ingkarni Wardli :: Dr Murray Elder :: University of Newcastle

I will attempt to explain what a totally disconnected, locally compact group is, and then describe some new work with George Willis on an attempt to create new examples based on Baumslag-Solitar groups, which are well known, tried and tested examples/counterexamples in geometric/combinatorial group theory. I will describe how to compute invariants of scale and flat rank for these groups.

What is a self-similar group?

15:10 Fri 20 Apr 12 :: B.21 Ingkarni Wardli :: Dr Murray Elder :: University of Newcastle

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I will give a brief introduction to the theory of self-similar groups, focusing on a couple of pertinent examples: Grigorchuk's group of intermediate growth, and the basilica group.

Congratulations to Thomas Brown, jointly supervised by Ed Green and Ben Binder who won the AMSI/Cambridge University Press Prize for the best talk at the 2013 CSIRO Big Day In, recently held this month. After completion of their summer project, vacation scholars must submit a project report which summarises the project and addresses the nature of the topic, methods of investigation, results found, and benefits of the experience. The scholars then present a 15-minute presentation about their project at the CSIRO Big Day In (BDI). This experience enables students to meet and socialise with their peers, gain experience presenting to their colleagues and supervisors and learn about a range of careers in science by interacting with several CSIRO scientists (including mathematicians) in a discussion panel. This is a very pleasing result for Thomas, Ed and Ben as well as for the School of Mathematical Sciences. Well done Thomas.