If you imagine a three dimensional maze from which there is no escape, how can you map it? Is there a way to describe what all possible mazes look like, and how do mathematicians set about investigating them?
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Caroline Series describes how hyperbolic geometry is playing a crucial role in answering such questions, illustrating her talk with pictures that have inspired some striking examples of digital art.
Caroline Series is Professor of Mathematics at the Warwick Mathematics Institute, University of Warwick
Her academic interests are in hyperbolic geometry, Kleinian groups and dynamical systems. Her research has been on the theory of dynamical systems and geometric patterns in three-dimensional hyperbolic spaces.
Her work has been recognised through awards and prizes, most recently with the Senior Anne Bennett Prize from the London Mathematical Society. She is also a founding member of the European Women in Mathematics (EWM), which aims to support and encourage female mathematicians across Europe.
This was filmed at a Friday Evening Discourse at the Royal Institution on 28 November 2014.
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