University of Northern Iowa UNI ScholarWorks Dissertations and Theses @ UNI Student Work 2013 Einstein metrics on piecewise-linear three-spheres Kyle Pitzen University of Northern Iowa Let us know how access to this document benefits ouy Copyright ©2013 Kyle Pitzen Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd Part of the Mathematics Commons Recommended Citation Pitzen, Kyle, "Einstein metrics on piecewise-linear three-spheres" (2013). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 83. https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/83 This Open Access Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Work at UNI ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses @ UNI by an authorized administrator of UNI ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. EINSTEIN METRICS ON PIECEWISE-LINEAR THREE-SPHERES An Abstract of a Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree Master of Arts Kyle Pitzen University of Northern Iowa August 2013 ABSTRACT Einstein metrics on manifolds are in some ways the \best" or most symmetric metrics those manifolds will allow. There has been much work on these metrics in the realm of smooth manifolds, and many results have been published. These results are very difficult to compute directly, however, and so it is helpful to consider piecewise-linear approximations to those manifolds in order to more quickly compute and describe what these metrics actually look like. We will use discrete analogues to powerful preexisting tools to do analysis on two particular triangulations of the three dimensional sphere with the intent of finding Einstein metrics on those triangulations.