Colloquium Schedule for 1996-7

Link homotopy in dimension 3, 4 and more


Peter Teichner,
University of California - San Diego and University of California - Berkeley

A single sphere S^k can be KNOTTED in R^n whereas two ormore spheres can be LINKED. Link homotopy is a theory which tries toignore knotting phenomena and concentrate on how different componentsmore spheres can be LINKED. Link homotopy is a theory which tries toignore knotting phenomena and concentrate on how different componentsinteract. We will give an introduction to this theory of "linksmodulo knots"