Speaker: Anitha Thillaisundaram

Title: The Burnside Problem

Abstract: Posed by the mathematician William Burnside in 1902, the Burnside Problem is one of the most influential problems in the subject of group theory within algebra. The theory of groups is the study of symmetries (such as the rotations and reflections of a cube), and there are wide applications of group theory such as to chemistry, physics and engineering. Now the Burnside Problem asks whether there exists a finitely generated infinite torsion group, where finitely generated means that one only needs a finite number of symmetries to generate all elements in the group, and torsion means that every element in the group is a finite symmetry operation. In this talk, we will discuss the Burnside Problem and its variants, plus shed light on the huge influence of this problem on the development of group theory.