Geometry, Topology and Dynamics Seminar
Steve Hurder
UIC
Introduction to dynamics of quasi-crystals
Abstract: This is the first of a series of lectures on dynamical systems for graduate students and faculty. All talks
will be at the level of a Graduate Seminar, with the aim of introducing the audience to various areas of
current research in dynamical systems and geometric topology.
The first lecture will introduce quasi-crystals, which are like crystaline solids, except that they are only
quasi-periodic. Amazingly, quasi-crystals appear in nature, and their initial study was motivated by
questions in physics. But it turns out that quasi-crystals are best explained using ideas of dynamical
systems, and each quasi-crystal has an associated lamination, which is a generalized solenoid. In
subsequent talks, we will explore the properties of laminations and their dynamical systems.
Wednesday September 19, 2007 at 3:00 PM in SEO 512