A Visual Tour of the Heisenberg Group

I will provide an intuitive introduction to a simple but fascinating
metric space, called the Heisenberg group.  Understanding the definition
and basic properties of the Heisenberg group is worthwhile because it is
the simplest non-trivial example of a so-called sub-Riemannian manifold. 
Sub-Riemannian geometry, the study of such manifolds, is a rich, blooming
new field of mathematics with an abundance of attractive applications and
open questions.  Even new graduate students will find this talk
accessible.