Spencer Becker-Kahn

Minimal surfaces, often popularized as `soap bubbles' or `soap films', have been ubiquitous and prototypical in geometric analysis for many years. I will introduce this venerable subject by drawing mediocre pictures and telling stories that I hope will be interesting and that are certain to be full of lies. In the latter part of the talk, I will try to explain the way in which `serious' geometric measure theory has played a crucial role in establishing more classical-sounding results such as pointwise curvature estimates and existence theorems.