Perelman entropy and Ricci flow with surgery

In 1982, Hamilton pioneered the use of Ricci flow in the study of the geometry of 3-manifolds. Moreover, he established a conceptual program on how Ricci flow with surgery might be used to yield even deeper results. This program was famously completed by Perelman in 2003 and led to proofs of the Poincaré and geometrization conjectures. In my talk, I will discuss some of the basic properties of higher dimensional Ricci-flow, give a basic outline of Hamilton's program and explain how an entropy-like quantity introduced by Perelman can be used to bring order into a chaotic situation.