Texas A&M
University, Department of
Mathematics, 216 Milner Hall, 12th and 19th of November 2008, 3:00-3:50
Groups and Dynamics Seminar
Rational and irrational series over the free group
Aaron Lauve of Texas
A&M
University
A curious identity of Euler goes as follows: the sum of x^k over
all k in Z is zero. Coming to grips with the meaning of
this identity (for several noncommuting variables) leads to a new
characterization of the free skew field inside the space of functions
on the free group. I will give a motivation for this point of view
coming from the theory of quasideterminants, and then say a word or two
about the proof.