The Shape of Space

We know that the earth we live on is a sphere, but consider the three-dimensional shape of the universe. Does it go on forever, or could it wrap back on itself in some way? In this course we will consider the shape of space. We will learn how topologists and geometers visualize three-dimensional spaces, with a goal of learning about the eight three-dimensional shapes that form the building blocks of all three-dimensional spaces. In the process, we will learn about the celebrated Poincare Conjecture. The ideas we encounter will be deep, but we will study them in a hands-on way.