November 8, 2014 – Dr. Mirroslav Yotov – “Soccer balls, Doughnuts, Pretzels… or how do we distinguish between shapes of surfaces in 3D.”

It is known how important it is to be able to “recognize” shapes in 3D. A way to achieve this is by using concepts of modern topology (a part of mathematics studying shapes). In the talk, in a down to earth form, we introduce important concepts from Algebraic Topology and show examples of how they work. We explain also how these can be used in identifying the shape of objects in 3D.