Abstract: Real quasi-toric manifolds are topological spaces having well-behaved torus actions and combinatorially rich quotient spaces. They are closely related to toric varieties, e.g., the set of real points of a smooth projective toric variety is a real quasi-toric manifold. Their mod 2 homology is well-understood, but virtually nothing is known about integral homology. In this talk I will outline a strategy for computing the Betti numbers of a real quasi-toric manifold. The techniques used draw inspiration from Fox’s free calculus and the representation theory of finite groups.

See the flyer for more details.

Hope to see everyone there.

About the founding editor:

David B. Massey was born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1959. He attended Duke University as an undergraduate mathematics major from 1977 to 1981, graduating summa cum laude. He remained at Duke as a graduate student from 1981 to 1986. He received his Ph.D. in mathematics in 1986 for his results in the area of complex analytic singularities.

Professor Massey taught for two years at Duke as a graduate student, and then for two years, 1986-1988, as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Notre Dame. In 1988, he was awarded a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, and went to conduct research on singularities at Northeastern University. In 1991, he assumed a regular faculty position in the Mathematics Department at Northeastern. He has remained at Northeastern University ever since, where he is now a Full Professor.

Professor Massey has won awards for his teaching, both as a graduate student and as a faculty member at Northeastern.  He has published 32 research papers, and two research-level books. In addition, he was a chapter author of the national award-winning book on teaching:  “Dear Jonas: What can I say?, Chalk Talk: E-advice from Jonas Chalk, Legendary College Teacher”, edited by D. Qualters and M. Diamond, New Forums Press, (2004).

About the Worldwide Center of Mathematics, LLC:

The Worldwide Center of Mathematics, LLC was founded in the fall of 2008 by David B. Massey, an award-winning professor, with 26 years of college teaching experience, and a leading research mathematician in the area of singularities.

In addition to producing and publishing multimedia textbooks, the Center performs other free services for the mathematical community, such as a providing a freely-accessible mathematics journal, and recording and freely-distributing, via the Web, research lectures which are given before live audiences in our studio classroom. In the future, we hope to provide other services, such as walk-in tutoring for students in the greater-Boston area, and 24/7 online mathematics help.

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