Wednesday 22 April 2026 at 4:45 pm, as part of the Insalate di Matematica seminar cycle, Andreas Lorrain (Vrije Universiteit Brussel & Università di Milano-Bicocca) will give the following talk
Title: Dehn-gerous groups!
Abstract: In 1911 Max Dehn asked the following question: Given a group defined by generators and relations, is there an algorithm that can determine if a word represents the identity? It turns out that this depends on the group. So, suppose that such an algorithm exists for your favourite group. How fast is it? Gromov defined a way to quantify this and called it the 'Dehn function'. One can see this Dehn function as a measure of some sort of complexity of the group. In this talk we will explore some of the subtleties of this problem and consider a special set of groups: the Thompson groups F, T, and V. Are they as complex as they look?
Keywords: Geometric group theory, Dehn functions, Thompson groups
Information to attend
The seminar will be held in Room U9-05 (U9 Building | Viale dell’Innovazione 10, Milano) and will also be available online by this link (password: insalate, 46725283 from phones).
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