Details
Wednesday, September 30, 2009 5:15 pm PHSC 809
Abstract Thurston asked in 1980 if the Weber Seifert manifold, obtained from a regular hyperbolic dodecahedron by opposite face identifications, has an essential surface or not. The issue is whether a practical algorithm could be found to achieve this result. Jaco -Oertel showed in 1984 it is sufficient to check the vertex solutions to answer this question. In recent joint work with Burton and Tillmann, we show that there are no essential surfaces by Burton's normal surface software, a heuristic search for compressing disks and a strengthening of Jaco Oertel's result to search for pairs of compatible vertex solutions.
Please note This talk is cancelled.