From - Thu Oct 09 08:13:01 1997 Path: news.unt.edu!cs.utexas.edu!howland.erols.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!orion.math.uiuc.edu!dan From: baez@math.ucr.edu (john baez) Newsgroups: sci.math.research Subject: Low-dimensional topology and quantum gravity Date: 6 Oct 1997 15:21:30 -0700 Organization: University of California, Riverside Lines: 87 Approved: Daniel Grayson , moderator for sci.math.research Message-ID: <61bo9a$iri@charity.ucr.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: orion.math.uiuc.edu Originator: dan@orion.math.uiuc.edu There will be a special session on "Low-dimensional Topology and Quantum Gravity" at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Baltimore, which will be held by the American Mathematical Society and other organizations from January 7th to 10th, 1998. Here are the talks we have lined up: Quantum Theory of Riemannian Geometry Abhay Ashtekar ashtekar@phys.psu.edu Quantum Gravity: Path Integrals and State Sums John W Barrett, jwb@maths.nott.ac.uk Lattice Gauge Field Theory and Deformation Quantization Doug Bullock, bullock@math.gwu.edu Charles Frohman, frohman@math.uiowa.edu Joanna Kania-Bartoszynska, kania@math.idbsu.edu Einstein Manifolds, Spacetime Foam, and the Cosmological Constant Steven J. Carlip, carlip@dirac.ucdavis.edu A State Sum Formulation for Quantum General Relativity Louis Crane, crane@math.ksu.edu Path Integrals Linking Chern-Simons and WZW Partition Functions Dana S Fine, dfine@umassd.edu The Kauffman Bracket Skein Module as a C*-algebra Charles D. Frohman, frohman@math.uiowa.edu Joanna Kania-Bartoszynska, kania@math.idbsu.edu Quantum Space and Causality Fotini G Markopoulou, fotini@phys.psu.edu Loop Constraints: A Habitat and their Algebra Donald M Marolf, marolf@suhep.phy.syr.edu Jerzy Lewandowski, lewand@aei-potsdam.mpg.de Kontsevich Integrals, Knot Invariants and TQFT Roger Picken, Roger.Francis.Picken@math.ist.utl.pt Tautological Classes and Cohomological Field Theories in Genus One Alexandre Kabanov, kabanov@math.msu.edu Takashi Kimura, kimura@math.bu.edu Discrete Physics Louis H. Kauffman, kauffman@uic.edu Spin Networks, Chern-Simons Theory and Black Holes Kirill V. Krasnov, krasnov@phys.psu.edu 2-Tangles as a Free Braided Monoidal 2-Category with Duals Laurel T. Langford, laurel.langford@uwrf.edu The Space of States of Canonical Quantum gravity, Diffeo Invariance vs. Field Theory Jorge Pullin, pullin@phys.psu.edu Multiplicative Invariants and the Andrews-Curtis Conjecture John Rosson, rosson@alamo.mth.pdx.edu >From Loop Quantum Gravity to a Sum over Surfaces Carlo Rovelli, rovelli@pitt.edu Perturbative Strings From Perturbations of Evolving Spin Networks Lee Smolin, smolin@phys.psu.edu A Survey of Cohomological Physics James Stasheff, jds@math.unc.edu The Homotopy Algebraic Structure of Topological Gravity Alexander A. Voronov, voronov@math.mit.edu Grist for a 4-D State-Sum Mill: Examples of Monoidal Bicategories David N Yetter, dyetter@math.ksu.edu Our session will take place on Wednesday January 7th and Thursday January 8th. Witten will be giving a plenary talk on M-theory on Wednesday night, and there will also be sessions on "Knot Theory and Quantum Topology" on Friday and Saturday and "Homotopy Theory" on Wednesday and Saturday. For more information see: http://www.ams.org/amsmtgs/2014_intro.html