This book studies the relation between conformal invariants and dynamical invariants and their applications, taking the reader on an excursion through a wide range of topics. The conformal invariants, called here the conformal modules of conjugacy classes of elements of the fundamental group, were proposed by Gromov in the case of the twice punctured complex plane. They provide obstructions to Gromov's Oka Principle. The invariants of the space of monic polynomials of degree n appeared earlier in relation to Hilbert's 13th Problem, and are called the conformal modules of conjugacy classes of braids.