Cornell Math - MATH 758, Spring 1999

MATH 758 — Spring 1999
Topics in Topology

Instructor: Daniel Wise

Time:  TR 11:40-12:55

Room: WE 310

This course will be about residual finiteness and subgroup separability of infinite groups. The results themselves are group theoretical but most of the arguments and motivations are topological. One of the main goals will be to prove that every geometrically finite subgroup of the figure 8 knot group is separable. It follows that any immersed surface in the figure 8 knot complement can be lifted to an embedding in a finite cover. We will fill in various topics in geometric group theory as they are needed.