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Colloquium: Spencer Unger (HUJI) - A constructive solution to Tarski's circle squaring problem | Einstein Institute of Mathematics

Colloquium: Spencer Unger (HUJI) - A constructive solution to Tarski's circle squaring problem

Date: 
Thu, 22/11/201814:30-15:30
Location: 
Manchester Building (Hall 2), Hebrew University Jerusalem
In 1925, Tarski asked whether a disk in R^2 can be partitioned into finitely many pieces which can be rearranged by isometries to form a square of the same area. The restriction of having a disk and a square with the same area is necessary. In 1990, Laczkovich gave a positive answer to the problem using the axiom of choice. We give a completely explicit (Borel) way to break the circle and the square into congruent pieces. This answers a question of Wagon. Our proof has three main components. The first is work of Laczkovich in Diophantine approximation. The second is recent progress in a program of descriptive set theory to understand the complexity of actions of amenable groups. The third is the study of flows in networks. This is joint work with Andrew Marks.