Thurston's work on surfaces

In this introductory talk, we will advertise the key points we will cover throughout the semester, including the main intuitive point that a path of constant curvature -1 metrics on a surface of genus >= 2 can degenerate into a transverse measured foliation. We will state the relevant theorems and applications precisely. For the analogous case of a torus (with normalized flat metrics), the situation is simple enough that we will see the main ideas at work.