Date of Submission

Spring 2018

Academic Programs and Concentrations

Mathematics

Project Advisor 1

James Belk

Abstract/Artist's Statement

The Sierpinski carpet is a fractal formed by dividing the unit square into nine congruent squares, removing the center one, and repeating the process for each of the eight remaining squares, continuing infinitely many times. It is a well-known fractal with many fascinating topological properties that appears in a variety of different contexts, including as rational Julia sets. In this project, we study self-homeomorphisms of the Sierpinski carpet. We investigate the structure of the homeomorphism group, identify its finite subgroups, and attempt to define a transducer homeomorphism of the carpet. In particular, we find that the symmetry groups of platonic solids and D_n x Z_2 for positive integers n are all subgroups of the homeomorphism group of the carpet, using the theorem of Whyburn that any two S-curves are homeomorphic.

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Open Access

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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