There are some questions about outer space that I would like to be able to answer. Some nice survey articles look to be:

Bestvina, Mladen The topology of . Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Vol. II (Beijing, 2002), 373—384, Higher Ed. Press, Beijing, 2002.

and also:

Vogtmann, Karen Automorphisms of free groups and outer space.Proceedings of the Conference on Geometric and Combinatorial Group Theory, Part I (Haifa, 2000). Geom. Dedicata 94 (2002), 1—31.

Here is a ridiculously simple question I have wondered about: given , say with , how can I tell if and are conjugate? I suspect I’m being stupid here.

In light of my recent comments on LINCOS and communiating with extraterristrials, I found an article:

Ruelle, David Conversations on mathematics with a visitor from outer space. Mathematics: frontiers and perspectives, 251—259, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 2000.

Putnam also makes use of the idea of mathematicians from other planets, to more philosophical ends.