[Binghamton Geometry/Topology Seminar] LAST MINUTE CHANGE

[Ross Geoghegan]

                   BINGHAMTON GEOMETRY/TOPOLOGY SEMINAR

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!     LAST MINUTE CHANGE OF TIME    !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

   Date: TODAY Monday May 8, 2006 	

   Time:  1.10 pm  (NOTE LAST MINUTE CHANGE OF TIME)

   Place: Library North 2205 followed by coffee/tea in the Anderson
          Reading Room.

   Speaker: Daniel Biss (U of Chicago)

   Title:   Annihilators in Cayley-Dickson algebras

(Change of time needed to fit the speaker's plane schedule.)

ABSTRACT:
The Cayley-Dickson algebras form a sequence of R-algebras beginning with
the real numbers, the complex numbers, the quaternions, and the octonions. 
We rarely hear about the subsequent members of this sequence, since they
not only lack associativity but also have zero-divisors (as the Hopf
invariant 1 theorem demands).  These zero-divisors, however, can be viewed 
not as a pathology but rather as an opportunity; the zero-divisors in the
16-dimensional Cayley-Dickson algebra give rise to the Lie group G_2, and
in the larger algebras they seem to be even more interesting.  We'll 
describe joint results with Dan Christensen, Dan Dugger and Dan Isaksen
about the geometry of these spaces of zero-divisors.