UBC Mathematics Department
http://www.math.ubc.ca
Somewhat to the consternation of the topological community, theoretical physicists have in recent years become interested in something they call `quantum cohomology'. To a mathematician some aspects of this are very mysterious -- quantum cohomology is not much of a functor, for example -- but the physicists have their own insights into the subject, which have led to new results about quite concrete classical problems. This talk will be very elementary; some nice [and unfamiliar] things can be seen relatively simply from the physicists' point of view. I will give a kind of introductory survey, in hope of making the subject more accessible to both communities.