Elephants, ants and introduction to topology (WHY2025)

Have you ever thought that Mathematics is a boring science about multiplying matrices, calculating integrals and approximating functions? Well, you've been wrong. Mathematics is much bigger than that and in this talk we are going to look at one of the foundational object in Topology - a manifold. And, most importantly, we won't need any formulas or calculations to introduce it. (No prior knowledge of any level is required) As a PhD in Geometry and Topology, working in Software Engineering, I rarely have an opportunity to use Mathematics in day-to-day tasks. You don't really need Abstract Algebra to write a YAML-file. Yet, I think there is a number of mathematical concepts, which do not require an in-depth knowledge and complex abstractions, but can enrich our language and the way how we think about problems, how we collaborate, and how we structure the work around complex tasks. Unfortunately, it often happens that mathematical abstraction get hidden behind the tons of Calculus, which you are expected to master before you are allowed to dive deeper. It doesn't have to be this way and I will prove it :) So let's talk about the topology the fun way. Licensed to the public under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ about this event: https://program.why2025.org/why2025/talk/B9KU3X/