Richard Thompson's group F is a widely studied group which has
provided examples of and counterexamples to a variety of conjectures
in group theory. From the perspective of geometric group theory, F
is an interesting group because it can be studied either as a
finitely or infinitely presented group. Additionally, elements of
F can be understood in three very different ways: algebraically,
analytically and combinatorially. I will explain why these
interpretations are equivalent, describe a method of computing the
word length of group elements with respect to the standard finite
generating set for F, and discuss some open problems concerning this
group.

Lecture #12545

Need help? Visit our help pages at http://www.msri.org/communications/vmath/hints

Supplements

Right click on the link and "Save As..." to save to your local computer.

• 12545.pdf (4.0 MB)

Left click on thumbnail to see a larger image.

Streaming Video

This is a high quality streaming video encoded with MPEG-4 and with 640x480 resolution.

Windows and Mac users, QuickTime 6.5 or later required
Linux users, please see our Linux Help Page on how to view our streaming videos

Follow this link to --- Watch the Video Now Via Streaming Video ---

Download QuickTime File

You can download the QuickTime file here. Right click on the link and "Save As..." to save to your local computer.

• 12545-12545-QuickTime.mov (240 MB)

Create a DVD

You can download the video and audio files here. Please note that you need both files to create a DVD. Right click on the link and "Save As..." to save to your local computer. You can find instructions on how to create a DVD on our help page at http://www.msri.org/communications/vmath/author

• 12545-12545-DVD PCM Audio.aiff (490 MB - Audio Only)
• 12545-12545-MPEG-2 120min High Quality Encode.m2v (1127 MB - Video Only)

Buy the DVD

If none of the options work for you, you can always buy the DVD of this lecture.

If you would like to purchase a copy of this video for $15+shipping, please Click Here!

See more of our Streaming Videos on our main VMath - Streaming Video page.