Abstract: It has been argued that the starting point of algebraic geometry was the correspondence between Arthur Cayley and George Salmon in 1849: in it, they announce the fact that a (smooth) cubic surface in projective 3-space over the complex numbers contains precisely 27 straight lines. Since then, many mathematicians contributed to the subject of cubic surfaces, including Schl\"afli, Steiner, Clebsch and Klein in the 19th, and Segre, Manin and Swinnerton-Dyer in the 20th century. In the talk some of this classical theory is reviewed, including the problem of the existence and geometrical construction of a parametrization by rational functions over a given field. This turns out to have modern applications in computer aided geometric design.
Here is a link to the slides of Japp Top’s talk.
Location: room 611 of the Wiskunde building (campus De Uithof) Budapestlaan 6, Utrecht.
Date and time: Thursday, October 8, 2009 15:30-16:30. The lecture is preceded by coffee, tea, and cookies from 15.00 to 15.30 hour in the same room.
Schedule of the Utrecht math colloquium : Next term’s talks, This year's talks. Last year's talks. Guidelines for speakers.
Other math colloquia : TU Delft, Leiden, UvA Amsterdam, VU Amsterdam, Nijmegen.
Organisers : Gil Cavalcanti, Wilberd van der Kallen and Paul Zegeling