Fifty Years since Fox and Milnor

Description: Fifty years ago, in a 1957 research announcement for the summer AMS meeting, R. H. Fox and J. Milnor, began their influential collaboration with the title, `Singularities of 2-spheres in 4-space and equivalence of knots.' Here they introduced the seminal idea that the concordance class of the link of a singularity obstructs its removal. Both concordance of knots, and the motivating goal of understanding singularities remain central to topology and algebraic geometry. A conference at Brandeis University will be held on June 2-5, 2008, to bring together a variety of researchers and students in geometric topology whose work connects to this fundamental idea. The conference will fertilize new research directions by encouraging mathematical interaction and collaboration. A substantial number of young investigators will be invited to give them exposure, broaden their perspective, and allow them to get to know each other and the more senior members of these fields. There will be approximately twenty invited addresses, and ample time will be set aside for interaction among the attendees. The conference will also honor the memory of Jerry Levine, a pioneer and key contributor to the field.

We anticipate financial support from the NSF, and in particular expect to offer partial support to recent PhDs and graduate students. Requests for support must be received by May 9, preferably before. To request support, please click the appropriate box on the registration page. Further information about this will be forthcoming.