Undergraduate Mathematics Students
Math + Pizza = SUM Series
Like math? Like pizza? How about math and pizza simultaneously?
Every Thursday from 3:00 to 3:50, you can listen to an informal, interesting talk about mathematics, while snacking on pizza. Just come to Harrelson Hall, room 330.
This week's talk:
Regular Polytopes and Tessellations
(Why life is more interesting in low dimension)
Nathan Reading
Thursday, January 15, 2009
3:00--3:50 p.m.
Harrelson 330
Polytopes (known in dimensions zero through three as "points," "line segments," "polygons," and "polyhedra") have been objects of interest to mathematicians throughout the recorded history of mathematics.
Most notably, the five Platonic solids were probably known at least a thousand years before Plato.
Regular polytopes are "as symmetric as possible" in a sense that I'll make precise in the talk.
Regular tessellations are tilings of space which are symmetric in an analogous sense.
I will discuss the proof that the symmetry groups of regular polytopes and tessellations are generated by reflections and discuss how that leads to a complete classification of regular polytopes and tessellations (via the theory of reflection groups). This will explain why there are so few regular polytopes and tessellations in high dimensions.
Check out the SUM Series website for more information on the SUM Series.
TELL YOUR FRIENDS!
Posted at 09:06AM Jan 09, 2009 by nreadin in General | Comments[0]