Title: What are amenable groups and why are groups non-amenable Abstract: I will give an introduction to amenable groups and explain the result of Kevin Whyte that a countable non-amenable group admits a "translation-like" action by a non-abelian free group. I will also discuss (without proof) a measure theoretic analogue of this result due to D. Gaboriau and R. Lyons.

I'll report on recent applications of the LLL to two problems in the dynamics of general countable groups. The first concerns the existence of free symbolic minimal actions; the second asks about realizations of URS's (uniformly recurrent subgroups) as stability systems. I'll then concentrate on a solution of Gabor Elek to the second problem in the case of finitely generated groups.

I'll report on recent applications of the LLL to two problems in the dynamics of general countable groups. The first concerns the existence of free symbolic minimal actions; the second asks about realizations of URS's (uniformly recurrent subgroups) as stability systems. I'll then concentrate on a solution of Gabor Elek to the second problem in the case of finitely generated groups.

I'll report on recent applications of the LLL to two problems in the dynamics of general countable groups. The first concerns the existence of free symbolic minimal actions; the second asks about realizations of URS's (uniformly recurrent subgroups) as stability systems. I'll then concentrate on a solution of Gabor Elek to the second problem in the case of finitely generated groups.

A dimension gap for continued fractions with independent digits (after Kifer, Peres and Weiss)

I'll report on recent applications of the LLL to two problems in the dynamics of general countable groups. The first concerns the existence of free symbolic minimal actions; the second asks about realizations of URS's (uniformly recurrent subgroups) as stability systems. I'll then concentrate on a solution of Gabor Elek to the second problem in the case of finitely generated groups.

I'll report on recent applications of the LLL to two problems in the dynamics of general countable groups. The first concerns the existence of free symbolic minimal actions; the second asks about realizations of URS's (uniformly recurrent subgroups) as stability systems. I'll then concentrate on a solution of Gabor Elek to the second problem in the case of finitely generated groups.

I'll report on recent applications of the LLL to two problems in the dynamics of general countable groups. The first concerns the existence of free symbolic minimal actions; the second asks about realizations of URS's (uniformly recurrent subgroups) as stability systems. I'll then concentrate on a solution of Gabor Elek to the second problem in the case of finitely generated groups.