Robin Cockett ‘Abstract differential geometry matters!’

Date/Time
Date(s) - 14/12/2018
4:15 pm - 5:00 pm

Location
The University of Strathclyde


SICSA DVF Professor Robin Cockett, Department of Computing Science at the University of Calgary will be giving a lecture at the University of Strathclyde on 14th December 2018.

Title: Abstract differential geometry matters!

Abstract:The last few years has seen the development — largely in Canada and Australia — of an axiomatic approach to differential geometry based on tangent categories. Tangent categories incorporate the previous leading settings for differential geometry: finite dimensional manifolds, synthetic differential geometry, convenient manifolds, etc. In addition they widen the scope significantly as they also include combinatorial species, Goodwillie Functor calculi, and examples from computer science. The talk will give a survey of tangent categories and some of the developments so far.

Bio:  Prof. J. R. B. Cockett (1952) is a category theorist and computer scientist working in proof theory, computability and complexity, programming languages and semantics, categorical quantum information theory, and abstract differential geometry. After his PhD in Mathematics at the University of Leeds in 1979, he has worked in Essex (for Marconi research), Tennessee (US), Sydney (Australia), and since 1991 has been at the University of Calgary (Canada), where is a professor of computer science. He has developed three programming languages, Chartity, LQPL, and MPL, and is known for introducing and studying restriction categories, Turing categories, differential categories, and tangent categories.

Professor Cockett is being hosted by Dr Chris Heunen, University of Edinburgh

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