Hyperbolic Space: Popular Geometry Tenets Challenged in Lawrence Science Lecture

APPLETON, WIS. -- Don't look now, but all those high school geometry lessons about right angles and triangles may not be the way the universe really operates. So suggests a Williams College mathematician.

Colin Adams offers an alternative to the familiar and time-tested Euclidian geometry in the Lawrence University science hall colloquium, "Real Estate in Hyperbolic Space: Investment Opportunities for the New Millennium." Adams' address, Thursday, April 5 at 4:30 p.m. in Science Hall, Room 102, is free and open to the public.

Appearing under the guise of sleazy real estate agent "Mel Slugbate," Adams will offer a description of the fascinating properties of hyperbolic space. He also will discuss how cosmologists are hoping to determine if hyperbolic geometry -- where the sum of the angles of a triangle don't equal 180 degrees and the angles of a square are less than 90 degrees -- corresponds to the geometry of the universe in which we live.