Speaker: Ilia Zharkov

Abstract: Behind the classical Poncelet theorem about plane polygons inscribed in one circle and circumscribed about another lie two involutions on a genus one Riemann surface (aka elliptic curve). I'll describe several other examples of discrete dynamical systems with similar properties:  Bolzmann billiard, 2D and 3D robotics, etc, where the elliptic curve gets replaced by its higher-dimensional analogs, the Calabi-Yau varieties.