Why one should fry pancakes in \(SL_3(\mathbb{R})\)

Wednesday 13 April 2016 from 12:00–13:00 in Carslaw 535A

Please join us for lunch after the talk!

Abstract: One of the main real-world applications of quasicrystals is Teflon; a material often used in frying pans. With every turn of a pancake, some of the Teflon is scraped off, and eventually enough Teflon has been lost to render the pan useless. In this talk, I want to discuss another way to produce Teflon-type materials, but this time in \(SL_3(\mathbb{R})\) (which has Property (T)), and not in \(\mathbb{R}^2\) (which does not have Property (T)). Successful productions of this material will allow you to fry (8-dimensional) pancakes forever. A more mathematical summary of the stuff that will be discussed during the talk can be found under the link: http://arxiv.org/abs/1602.08928 Joint work with Tobias Hartnick (Technion) and Felix Pogorzelski (Technion).