Quasiconformal Geometry of Fractals

Seminar: 
Geometry & Topology
Event time: 
Thursday, March 2, 2006 - 11:30am to 12:30pm
Location: 
431 DL
Speaker: 
Mario Bonk
Speaker affiliation: 
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Event description: 

Many questions in analysis and geometry lead to problems of
quasiconformal geometry on non-smooth or fractal spaces. For example, there is a close relation of this
subject to the problem of characterizing fundamental groups of hyperbolic
3-orbifolds or to Thurston’s characterization of rational functions with
finite post-critical set.

In recent years, the classical theory of quasiconformal maps between Euclidean spaces has been successfully extended to more general settings and powerful tools have become available. Fractal 2-spheres or Sierpinski carpets are typical spaces for which this deeper understanding of their quasiconformal geometry is particularly relevant and interesting. In my talk I will report on some recent developments in this area.