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Matt Satriano, Department of Pure Mathematics, University of Waterloo

"Short Ride in a Height Machine"

This talk is meant to be a quick introduction to the theory of height functions on projective varieties defined over number fields.  After describing the fundamental case of heights on projective space, we go into the basics of Weil's height machine.  For any projective variety, this gives a height function attached to each linear equivalence class of Cartier divisors (or each line bundle), satisfying a variety of pleasant functorial properties.