Abstract:

On logarithmic paper some real algebraic curves look like smoothed broken lines. Moreover, the broken lines can be obtained as limits of those curves. The corresponding deformation can be viewed as a quantization, in which the broken line is a classical object and the curves are quantum. This generalizes to a new connection between algebraic geometry and the geometry of polyhedra, which is more straight-forward than the other known connections and gives a new insight into constructions used in the topology of real algebraic varieties.