In physics, the holographic principle suggests that some manifolds are completely determined by their boundaries --- that the manifold is somehow a projection of information which is encoded on the boundary.  We will explore this idea in the particular case of symplectic manifolds with contact boundaries, asking for a count of the exact symplectic fillings of a given contact manifold.  Much of our time will be spent pretending to define these words, and eventually stating a precise question.  Time permitting, we will discuss the answer to our question, which is given by joint work with Li, and was independently obtained by Etnyre-Roy.  We will do our best to minimize technical prerequisites.

Meeting ID: 820 2345 1923