Date: Thursday 15-Mar-2018
Time: 4:30 pm
Location: Kirwan Hall 3206
Speaker: Richard Schoen (Stanford and UC Irvine)
Title: Geometry and General Relativity
This talk will be a survey of some of the geometric problems and ideas which either arose from general relativity or have direct bearing on the Einstein equations. It is intended for a general mathematical audience with minimal physics background. Topics will include an introduction to the Cauchy problem for the Einstein equations, problems related to gravitational mass which are closely related to the Riemannian geometry of positive scalar curvature, and trapped surfaces which are related to the mean curvature and minimal surfaces.
