Summer Course: The Mathematics of Billiards Drafts of billiards course notes
(in pdf format)

Please note: these are works-in-progress and are bound to have errors. If you notice any, please let me know. (mduchin@math.uchicago.edu)

Outline

Section I. Intro to billiards

Section II. Tools for billiards: geometry and topology

Section III. Polarized flat structures: equivalent definitions

Section IV. More tools: dynamics and lattices

Section V. SL(2,R)-action on the space of flat structures


This summer course with nine undergraduate participants, was supported by an NSF Focused Research Grant administered by Howard Masur, Alex Eskin, and Benson Farb.

Taught at the University of Chicago in August 2004 by Moon Duchin and Predrag Savic.