Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

Three dimensional lens spaces L(p,q) are well known as the first examples of 3-manifolds that were not known by their homology or fundamental group alone. The complete classification of L(p,q), upto homeomorphism, was an important result, the first proof of which was given by Reidemeister in the 1930s. In the 1980s, a more topological proof was given by Bonahon and Hodgson. This talk will discuss two equivalent definitions of Lens spaces, some of their well known properties, and then sketch the idea of Bonahon and Hodgson's proof. Time permitting, we shall also see Bonahon's result about the mapping class group of L(p,q).