Dr Mario Micallef from Warwick University will be giving a public lecture to the Malta Mathematical Society entitled “From Poincaré and Einstein to Perelman: discovering the geometry of the universe”.

Einstein’s theory of relativity is a geometric theory of gravitation. What would it be like to live in a bounded flat universe that has no boundaries? It would seem like a room whose walls are all mirrors, yielding infinitely many reflections. Universes that are not flat, and yet still very symmetric, have even more fascinating properties. Some of these spaces were studied by Poincaré at the turn of the century. They led to a mathematical conjecture whose solution was announced in the last couple of years by Grigory (Grisha) Perelman, based on earlier work of Hamilton. For this, he was offered the most prestigious prize offered by the mathematical community – the Fields Medal. But Grisha turned it down. Why?

The talk will be held at 6.30pm on Thursday in Room 216 of the Maths and Physics Building, University of Malta.