In the previous episode, we asked: if you have a family of foliations on a surface, do they arise as the movie of characteristic foliations of a contact structure? In this episode, we ask how unique these contact structures are.
Convex surfaces and tomography
We’ve seen that convex surfaces have wonderful foliations. We’re now going to consider the relationship between these foliations on surfaces, and contact structures
Liouville structures and convex surfaces
Starting from a Liouville 1-form on a surface, we have been led to 3-dimensional contact geometry, and convex surfaces. We now go in the other direction.
From Liouville geometry to contact geometry
(Technical) We’re going to take Liouville structures and move them into 3 dimensions, to obtain contact structures.
Lovely Liouville geometry
(Technical) I’d like to show you some very nice geometry, involving some vector fields and differential forms.