NEW YORK SEMINAR ON GENERAL TOPOLOGY AND TOPOLOGICAL ALGEBRA

May 2004

CHECK FOR CAMPUS AND LOCATION

MAY 6:  Rafael Sorkin, Physics, Syracuse U., "Is spacetime a past-finite poset?" At CCNY. Tea 3:15, NAC 8/133; talk 4:00 NAC 4/113. For parking, contact R. Kopperman, rdkcc@cunyvm.cuny.edu.
      ABSTRACT:  The causal set -- mathematically a locally finite ordered set or "poset" -- is a candidate discrete substratum for spacetime. I will introduce this idea and describe some aspects of causal set kinematics, dynamics, and phenomenology, including, as time permits, a notion of fractal dimension, a stochastic growth dynamics, and an idea for explaining some of the puzzling large numbers of cosmology. I will also mention some questions of mathematical interest that have arisen in this connection.

MAY 7, Related event: Miniconference: "The finite universe and some related subjects". Talks, abstracts, location given at Miniconference Web Page.
There is no registration fee, but please tell Ralph Kopperman, at rdkcc@cunyvm.cuny.edu if you plan to attend. This will help us have sufficient food at the lunch and teas, and sufficient space at the talks.

MAY 13:  Steve Matthews, Computer Science, U. of Warwick, UK, "Partial metrics and time." Tea 3:15, talk 4:00, Room 6-215 Baruch Coll. Vertical Campus, Lexington Av. and 24 St. For local information contact A. Todd, artbb@cunyvm.cuny.edu.

MAY 20:  W. W. Comfort, Wesleyan U., "Making group topologies with, and without, convergent sequences." Tea 3:15, talk 4:00, Room 6-215 Baruch Coll. Vertical Campus, Lexington Av. and 24 St. For local information contact A. Todd, artbb@cunyvm.cuny.edu.
      ABSTRACT: [Joint work with S. U. Raczkowski and F. J. Trigos-Arrieta.]  (1) Every infinite, Abelian compact (Hausdorff) group $K$ admits $2\sp {|K|}$-many dense, non-Haar-measurable subgroups of cardinality $|K|$. When $K$ is nonmetrizable, these may be chosen to be pseudocompact. (2) Every infinite Abelian group $G$ admits a family $\cal A$ of $2\sp{2\sp{|G|}}$-many pairwise nonhomeomorphic totally bounded group topologies such that no nontrivial sequence in $G$ converges in any of $\cal T\in A$. (For some $G$ one may arrange $w(G,{\cal T})<2\sp{|G|}$ for the topologies some $\cal T\in A$.) (3) Every infinite Abelian group $G$ admits a family $\cal B$ of $2\sp{2 \sp{|G|}}$-many pairwise nonhomeomorphic totally bounded group topologies, with $w(G,{\cal T})=2\sp{|G|}$ for all $\cal T\in B$, such that some fixed faithfully indexed sequence in $G$ converges to $0_G$ in each $\cal T\in B$.

For more information, contact:

CCNY (212-650-5346): R. Kopperman
College of Staten Island (718-982-3626): P. R. Misra
Baruch College (212-387-1463): A. Todd
LIU C. W. Post Center (516-299-2447): S. Andima
Marymount College (914-631-3200): M. Hastings
Queens College, Math. (718-997-5849): G. Itzkowitz
Queens College, Comp. Sci. (718-997-3478): T. Y. Kong