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Friday, January 23, 2009 2:30 PM PHSC 1105
Abstract In this talk I'll give a non-expert's introduction into Topological Field Theories (TFTs). They were introduced by Witten and Atiyah as an abstraction and mathematization of concepts from theoretical physics. We will talk very concretely about 0+1 and 1+1 TFTs and see that they give a beautiful connection between topology and algebra. In fact, as we will see, the moral of TFTs is that topology = algebra. The talk should be of interest and accessible to those on both sides of this equation.