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(POSTPONED) Thurston Lectures: The Magic Dimensions 8 and 24

Distinguished Lecture Series

Speaker: Dr. Henry Cohn, Microsoft Research
Related Webpage: https://www.math.ucdavis.edu/research/seminars/thurston/
Location:
Start time: Tue, May 19 2020, 4:10PM

The exact solution to the sphere packing problem is known in only five cases: 1, 2, 3, 8, and 24 dimensions. What's so special about 8 and 24 dimensions? Why not, for example, 16? Or 4? That question remains somewhat mysterious. In this talk, we'll take a look at how sphere packing works, and we'll examine the proof techniques behind 8 and 24 dimensions.



Postponed to 2021