The Mahler lectures are a biennial activity organised by the Australian Mathematical Society. In 2009 we have partnered with the Clay Mathematical Institute to combine the Mahler Lectures and the Clay Lectures into the 2009 Clay–Mahler Lecture Tour, with funding also from the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute.

• Friday 14th August in Hooper Lecture Theatre, La Trobe University, 2:00pm; specialist lecture by Danny Calegari (Caltech): Faces of the stable commutator length norm ball
  

Abstract: Faces of the stable commutator length norm ball

It often happens that a solution of an extremal problem in geometry has more regularity and nicer features than one has an a priori right to expect. I will show how a simple topological problem—when does an immersed curve on a surface bound an immersed subsurface?—is unexpectedly related to linear programming in nonseparable Banach spaces, and gives rise to geometric and dynamical rigidity and discreteness of symplectic representations.