Time: Wednesday December 11, 15:30--16:30.

Speaker: Professor Shmuel Weinberger (University of Chicago)

Venue: Room 77201 at Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research. (Inside yard # 78)

Abstract: On the space of maps between manifolds (for example) the Lipschitz constant of the map is an interesting and important functional. Various problems in geometric topology, differential geometry, combinatorial group theory, and data analysis can be viewed as revolving around its nature. In this talk, I will try to explain some of the interest in this functional and show some examples where its geometry is much more complicated than its topology suggests (following Gromov, and Nabutovsky and some joint work with Nabutovsky) and some examples where they are reasonably close (work with Ferry).