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Contact structures on 3-manifolds

Student-Run Geometry/Topology Seminar

Speaker: George Mossessian, UC Davis
Location: 2112 MSB
Start time: Tue, Oct 14 2014, 1:10PM

I'll define a contact structure, prove Martinet's theorem that every 3-manifold has one, talk about tight and overtwisted manifolds, and say a few words about Eliashburg's proof of Cerf's theorem, which says that every self-diffeomorphism of the 3-sphere extends to a diffeomorphism of the 4-ball.