Special talk: Quantum low-dimensional topology

Abstract: In the last decades, topology and geometry have been revolutionized by ideas originating from quantum physics and gauge theory. Examples are the Donaldson and Jones polynomials, the topological quantum field theories (TQFTs) of Witten and Reshetikhin-Turaev, the Seiberg-Witten invariants and homology theories of Floer and Ozsvath-Szabo. Quantum topology is devoted to the study of these invariants.