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Circle Packing and Discrete Analytic Functions

Student-Run Geometry/Topology Seminar

Speaker: Matt Rathbun, UC Davis
Location: 2112 MSB
Start time: Thu, May 25 2006, 1:10PM

A circle packing is a configuration of circles with a specified pattern of tangencies. A circle packing can be easily identified with a simplicial 2-complex with some rather mild conditions. This largely combinatoric notion actually carries with it a tremendous amount of geometric information. We will use these ideas to explore the relationship between analytic functions (maps that "carry infinitesimal circles to infinitesimal circles") and so-called discrete analytic functions (maps that "carry real circles to real circles").