Frontiers of Science, the longest continuously-running lecture series at the University of Utah, welcomes Curtis T. McMullen of Harvard University who will deliver a lecture titled “Negative Curved Crystals” on Monday, December 13 at 6 p.m. in the Aline Skaggs Biology Building, Room 220.

Imagine the Universe is a periodic crystal, warped into negative curvature by gravity. In such a world, the thin walls of the crystalline structure might cut out a pattern of circles visible in the sky at night.

This talk will explore a handful of the infinitely many patterns that can arise, and explain their relationship to revolutionary advances in three-dimensional geometry.

McMullen is the Maria Moors Cabot Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University. He has received a Fields Medal and a Salem Prize, as well as a Simons Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Sloan Fellowship, among many other awards.

The presentation will also be available virtually here.

At McMullen’s request and out of respect to our speaker, we strongly encourage in-person attendees to wear a mask to his presentation.