Speaker:

Stavros Garoufalidis (SUSTech)

Time:

September 23 (Wed), 2026, 4:00-5:00 pm

Location:

HIMIS 7A1

Title:

Can you compute the genus of a knot?

Abstract:

A knot is a circle in 3-space, allowed to move as long as it does not intersect itself. Every knot bounds an (oriented surface), and the smallest genus of such a surface is the genus of the knot. The genus can be computed using 4-dimensional methods, such as categorification. I will discuss classical and quantum 3-dimensional methods that likely compute the genus, and illustrate them with computations, emerging patterns and conspiracy theories.

Bio:

Stavros Garoufalidis is a Chair Professor at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) and an External Scientific Member of the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn. He received his PhD in Mathematics from the University of Chicago in 1992 and was a Professor at Georgia Tech before joining SUSTech. His research focuses on quantum topology and geometry in dimension three. He has held Guggenheim and Simons fellowships.