{"658846":{"#nid":"658846","#data":{"type":"event","title":"Inaugural Tech Topology Summer School on 4-Manifolds","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe inaugural Tech Topology Summer School was held in Summer 2021, organized by\u0026nbsp;Wade Bloomquist, John Etnyre, Jen Hom, Miriam Kuzbary, and Beibei Liu. Originally intended as an in-person event, the organizers decided to hold the summer school online due to the pandemic, allowing a much larger audience: over 200 registered participants, spanning four continents, with many of the talks having over 100 people in attendance.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe topic for the week-long event was 4-manifolds. A 4-manifold is a space that locally looks like R^4, in the same way that a sphere locally looks like R^2. One surprising phenomenon is that there is a 4-manifold M that is homeomorphic to R^4 but not diffeomorphic to R^4 (meaning that we can identify M and R^4 through continuous functions but not differentiable functions). In fact, there are uncountably many different such M. Even more surprisingly, this only works for R^4 and no other R^n.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\nMajor open questions in the field are: Which 4-manifolds admit multiple smooth structures (like R^4)? If the algebraic topology of a 4-manifold is simple, is the 4-manifold also geometrically simple?\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe summer school featured mini-courses given by leaders in the field from MIT, Max-Planck-Institut fu\u0308r Mathematik in Bonn, and the Alfre\u0301d Re\u0301nyi\u0026nbsp;Institute of Mathematics in Budapest. The mini-courses featured a blend of pre-recorded material and synchronous lectures, as well as Zoom office hours led by TAs. The videos of the mini-courses are available online, and to date have hundreds (or in some cases, thousands!) of views.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe mini-courses were complemented by research talks given by researchers from across the country. In addition, junior participants were invited to submit lightning talks, 5 minute pre-recorded talks giving an introduction or overview of their research. During the summer school, there were several different breakout room sessions, allowing participants to discuss material ranging from the mini-courses to the research and lightning talks, as well as whatever else was on people\u0026rsquo;s minds.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cblockquote\u003E\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;Math is so collaborative, and one of the things that got somewhat lost during the pandemic was the opportunity for spontaneous conversation and collaboration,\u0026rdquo; said co-organizer Jen Hom. \u0026ldquo;One of our main goals when pivoting to the online format was to capture a small part of that magic that happens at conferences, when people from different institutions and with different perspectives on a topic come together and combine their knowledge to lead to new directions of research.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe next iteration of the Tech Topology Summer School will be held in-person in Summer 2023.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe inaugural Tech Topology Summer School was held in Summer 2021, organized by\u0026nbsp;Wade Bloomquist, John Etnyre, Jen Hom, Miriam Kuzbary, and Beibei Liu.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The inaugural Tech Topology Summer School was held in Summer 2021, organized by\u00a0Wade Bloomquist, John Etnyre, Jen Hom, Miriam Kuzbary, and Beibei Liu."}],"uid":"34518","created_gmt":"2022-06-14 14:23:58","changed_gmt":"2022-06-16 00:46:52","author":"sbarone7","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2021-07-26T01:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2021-07-31T00:59:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2021-07-31T00:59:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2021-07-26 05:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2021-07-31 04:59:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2021-07-31 04:59:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"658847":{"id":"658847","type":"image","title":"photo_ttss","body":null,"created":"1655216674","gmt_created":"2022-06-14 14:24:34","changed":"1655216674","gmt_changed":"2022-06-14 14:24:34","alt":"","file":{"fid":"249731","name":"photo_ttss.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/photo_ttss.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/photo_ttss.png","mime":"image\/png","size":975901,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/photo_ttss.png?itok=Dp4uwu2Q"}}},"media_ids":["658847"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/ttss.math.gatech.edu","title":"Tech Topology Summer School Homepage"}],"groups":[{"id":"1279","name":"School of Mathematics"},{"id":"1278","name":"College of Sciences"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"173647","name":"_for_math_site_"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78761","name":"Faculty\/Staff"},{"id":"78771","name":"Public"},{"id":"78751","name":"Undergraduate students"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:comm@math.gatech.edu\u0022\u003ESal Barone\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}