11/9/2005

Christopher Hacon
University of Utah

The birational geometry of algebraic varieties

In this talk I will give a survey of the results of the Minimal Model Program. After reviewing the classical approach for complex projective surfaces (which dates back to the Italian school at the beginning of the 20th century), I will explain the ideas behind the successful generalization of this approach to 3-folds (in the 1980's) and discuss some of the recent progress towards the higher dimensional cases.