Consider a simplicial complex that allows for an embedding into R^d. How many faces of dimension d/2 or higher can it have? How dense can they be?
This basic question goes back to Descartes. Using it and other rather fundamental combinatorial problems, I will motivate and introduce a version of Grothendieck's "standard conjectures" beyond positivity (which will be explored in detail in the Sunday Seminar).
All notions used will be explained in the talk (I will make an effort to be very elementary)