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Geometry-Topology Seminar

Thursday, March 22, 2001 - 4:30pm

Serge Tabachnikov

Penn State University

Location

University of Pennsylvania

DRL 4C8

I will discuss a new proof of two classical related results: the complete integrability of the billiard system inside, and the geodesic flow on, the ellipsoid. The main character in the proof is the hyperbolic metric inside the ellipsoid (the projective or Beltrami-Klein model of the hyperbolic geometry). I will also discuss related problems of global affine and projective differential geometry.