2022-2023 Colloquia

Abstract:  

This talk will discuss and prove Bell's Theorem, a strange result in physics.  The theorem, combined with experimental results, shows that the universe is non-local.  This means that an event in one location can have an instantaneous effect on another location, any distance away, from a few feet to light-years.  The topic is timely, as the 2022 Nobel Prize for physics was awarded for related experiments. 

Abstract:  

Somewhat recently, there has been a surge of activity in almost complex geometry (ACG) while little to no work has been done in almost symplectic geometry (ASG) even though ACG is equivalent to ASG.  Interestingly, complex geometry and symplectic geometry are not equivalent.  Indeed, there are complex manifolds with no symplectic structure and symplectic manifolds with no complex structure.  For this reason, there may be some value in establishing a `dictionary' between ACG and ASG.  Results in ACG could be translated into ASG, and since symplectic geometry is a special case of ASG, one hopes that some new tools could emerge which would be beneficial to symplectic geometry.  Of course, the reverse is also possible.  One can also imagine generalizing known results in symplectic geometry to ASG and then translating them to ACG where they could be useful to complex geometry.  In this talk, we give a gentle introduction to ASG.  If time permits, we will speculate on some tentative ideas that could be developed as part of an ASG research program.  (This is joint work with Fei Ye.)