This Has Nothing To Do With ACL: UT Lecture on "The Shape of Space" Tonight

For those hoping to avoid all of the pre-festival activities around downtown and looking for a dose of heady science (and really, who isn't?), UT Austin is hosting a special lecture by American mathematician Jeffrey Weeks, entitled 'The Shape of Space."

Celestial bodies are Weeks' intellectual playground, and the MacArthur Fellow spends his days devising ways to model the universe in various graphical manners. He's even had a math model named after him, the details of which escape our scrutiny.

The premise of tonight's lecture—"When we look out on a clear night, the universe seems infinite... Yet this infinity might be an illusion"—speaks to its somewhat more lighthearted nature, as it's directed towards anyone with "curiosity and imagination." Weeks will start by illustrating the idea of a “multiconnected universe” by means of computer games, and then walk the audience through several interactive 3-D graphics models that are possible "shapes" of space. A brief reception will follow.

"The Shape of Space" Lecture is open to the public, and takes place at the Thompson Conference Center, Room 1.110, near the corner of Dean Keeton St. and Robert Dedman Dr, just east of Red River and I-35. Starts at 7 p.m.

Related:
http://www.geometrygames.org/
http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/video/sos/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Weeks_(mathematician)