Topology and Geometry of Manifolds: 2001 Georgia International Topology Conference, May 21-June 2, 2001, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia

Since 1961, the Georgia Topology Conference has been held every eight years to discuss the newest developments in topology. The goals of the conference are to disseminate new and important results and to encourage interaction among topologists who are in different stages of their careers. Invited speakers are encouraged to aim their talks to a broad audience, and several talks are organized to introduce graduate students to topics of current interest. Each conference results in high-quality surveys, new research, and lists of unsolved problems, some of which are then formally published. Continuing in this 40-year tradition, the AMS presents this volume of articles and problem lists from the 2001 conference. Topics covered include symplectic and contact topology, foliations and laminations, and invariants of manifolds and knots. Articles of particular interest include John Etnyre's, ''Introductory Lectures on Contact Geometry'', which is a beautiful expository paper that explains the background and setting for many of the other papers. This is an excellent introduction to the subject for graduate students in neighboring fields. Etnyre and Lenhard Ng's, ''Problems in Low-Dimensional Contact Topology'' and Danny Calegari's extensive paper,''Problems in Foliations and Laminations of 3-Manifolds'' are carefully selected problems in keeping with the tradition of the conference. They were compiled by Etnyre and Ng and by Calegari with the input of many who were present. This book provides material of current interest to graduate students and research mathematicians interested in the geometry and topology of manifolds.