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Dept. of Mathematics, Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute (RKMVERI) has organised an colloquia on “From Euclid to knots” by Professor Abijit Champanerkar, City University New York, USA on 22 January 2025.

Title: From Euclid to knots

Abstract

In this talk we will give a historical perspective of Euclid’s famous parallel postulate which was considered to be obvious. However this problem remained unsolved for over 2000 years. We will explain how the solution to this problem opened interesting research directions in the study of low-dimensional topology and knot theory.

Short Bio of the speaker

Professor Champanerkar teaches mathematics at the City University of New York (CUNY). He earned his Ph. D from Columbia University.  After teaching positions at Columbia University and the University of South Alabama for a few years, he settled in at CUNY’s College of Staten Island.  Shortly after that Professor Champanerkar joined the Doctoral Faculty at the CUNY Graduate Center. Professor Champanerkar’s area of research is geometric topology.  He is especially interested in hyperbolic geometry and knot theory. Professor Champanerkar’s research has been funded by grants from the NSF, Simons Foundation and PSC CUNY.  Professor Champanerkar has organized numerous mathematics conferences and workshops around the world.  In addition to research, Professor Champanerkar is keenly interested in mathematics education. He is actively involved in the Mathematics Program at CUNY Graduate Center and regularly visits India to give talks and organize workshops.