| Date: Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Title: The Nash blow-up of a toric variety
Abstract: John Nash long ago introduced the Nash blow-up, which canonically associates to any algebraic variety a new variety with a proper birational morphism to the old one. It appears to make varieties smoother, so algebraic geometers have often wondered whether any variety can be desingularized by a finite sequence of Nash blow-ups. In the case of toric varieties, this question is equivalent to a simple question about convex polyhedra. I will exhibit experimental evidence, assembled by three Columbia undergraduates, for an affirmative answer to this question.
Speaker: Michael Thaddeus
Institution: Columbia University
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