Title:  Approximation of Sobolev mappings into metric spaces
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Abstract: The theory of Sobolev mappings between manifolds and metric spaces has
been a subject of an intense research for the past two decades. In the
talk I will review the classical results and the recent development
about approximation of Sobolev mappings by smooth and Lipschitz
mappings and I will show how it applies to calculus of variations,
geometry of sub-Riemannian manifolds and algebraic topology. The talk
will not be technical and should be of interest to anyone familiar
with the basic theory of manifolds.