5 Day Workshop at BIRS — Derived, Birational, and Categorical Algebraic Geometry

Birational geometry is a classical mathematic subject dating back to the late 1800s. It aims to classify geometric shapes by looking at the majority of their points and asks "if I remove some points from shape A and some other points from shape B, do they become the same shape?". This turns out to be a surprisingly difficult and fundamental mathematical question. Perhaps more surprising is that the classification of geometric shapes from birational geometry is related to the classification of abstract mathematical gadgets called derived categories, a formal language developed by prominent mathematicians in France in the 1960s. However, the relationship between derived categories and birational geometry remains unproven.