Limit shapes of typical geometric configurations and their applications (Q1781300)

This is the text of an expository lecture to students of the Independent University of Moscow, describing recent work, mainly of the author (together with \textit{I. Bárány} in the case of lattice polygons [Geom. Funct. Anal. 2, No. 4, 381--393 (1992; Zbl 0772.52010)], and with \textit{Yu. Yakubovich} in the case of Young tableaux [Mosc. Math. J. 1, No. 3, 457--468 (2001; Zbl 0996.05006)]), on the ``limit shapes'' of geometric objects (in particular, lattice polygons up to affine equivalence) and Young tableaux. The author presents a fascinating journey through this area touching upon diverse topics such as combinatorics, probability theory, affine differential geometry, statistical physics, variational principles, asymptotic analysis, crystallography etc.