The Centre for Advanced Studies in Mathematics (CASM) in collaboration with Abdus Salam School of Mathematical Sciences and National Centre for Mathematics organised a workshop on Topics in Topology from February 22-24, 2018. The main speakers at the event included Alberto Arabia (Senior Researcher, Université Paris Diderot, IMJ- PRG, CNRS, France), Barbu Berceanu (Professor, IMAR – Romania & AS-SMS-Pakistan), Christian Blanchet (Professor, Université Paris Diderot, IMJ- PRG, France) and Haniya Azam (LUMS, Pakistan).
Topological spaces arise naturally in almost every branch of mathematics. This has made topology one of the great unifying ideas in mathematics. In addition to this, the field of topology has found numerous applications in Biology, Physics, Computer Science and Robotics.
This three-day workshop was aimed at graduate students and young researchers, with lectures starting from an elementary level. Three mini lecture series on selected topics from lower dimensional topology, Morse theory and algebraic topology were held. These were followed by short tutorials. We hope to present invariants of braids and links, Morse homology leading to Floer theory, and cohomology of generalised configuration spaces.
The workshop was focused towards an audience with little background in topology and some interest in its application, and was a great opportunity for graduate students and young researchers from a budding community of pure mathematicians in Pakistan. The participants especially, the international faculty members were pleased with the scientific level and coherence of the programme.
