gilesgardam - Network

Congrats to the mathematicians in Berlin, Bonn and Münster, and commiserations to...

Congrats to the mathematicians in Berlin, Bonn and Münster, and commiserations to Heidelberg.

https://wisskomm.social/@dfg_public/114552099068840342

Today the German Research Foundation @dfg_public will announce which excellence clusters will be funded for the next 7 calendar years...

Today the German Research Foundation @dfg_public will announce which excellence clusters will be funded for the next 7 calendar years (totalling over €500m per annum). I've heard people complain that the evaluation focusses on structural measures and not the scientific programme. It's a common refrain that German universities are doing things they don't really want to because they're under pressure from the DFG. The DFG is largely self-governed by German universities. Here's the meme.

Learn as if you'll live forever. Publish as if you're on the job market tomorrow.Follow me for more actionable insights about...

Learn as if you'll live forever. Publish as if you're on the job market tomorrow.

Follow me for more actionable insights about #academia and work-work balance.

#MayDay

Is the cliché that researchers often have their best ideas in the shower just a reflection of the gross incompatibility of showering with...

Is the cliché that researchers often have their best ideas in the shower just a reflection of the gross incompatibility of showering with email?

polAfter the German elections I don't know what worries me more: the fascists waiting in the wings or the fascists in the West Wing.

pol

After the German elections I don't know what worries me more: the fascists waiting in the wings or the fascists in the West Wing.

4. That talk remains a representative pandemic moment for me. It was at a local seminar (in Newcastle, Australia) but with an international...

4. That talk remains a representative pandemic moment for me. It was at a local seminar (in Newcastle, Australia) but with an international crowd. The work leading up to it was essentially all done at home. And the critical part of that work was done on "borrowed time", when the start of the winter semester was postponed by a month due to the pandemic.

3. I was recently at a conference and was asked by 3 different people "do you have a computer search running at the moment?". This...

3. I was recently at a conference and was asked by 3 different people "do you have a computer search running at the moment?". This question comes up quite often. I guess that a lot of mathematicians know an example of somebody who had a computer search running in the background on their desktop for a long time. In some situations this makes sense, especially to save the human time needed to run the search differently, but in my case there's fairly little overhead to running large computations on a cluster over a day or two. Machine time is decisive, not clock time; most of the time I don't have anything running.

2. What about the other Kaplansky conjectures? That's an excellent question. Thank you for asking. I still believe most of them can be...

2. What about the other Kaplansky conjectures? That's an excellent question. Thank you for asking. I still believe most of them can be disproved with concrete counterexamples. We're making progress but it's not an easy undertaking. At least we now know the unit conjecture is false in all characteristics https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.05240.

1. That's quite a long time! In "how to make someone feel old" terms https://xkcd.com/891/, that talk was closer to when I...

1. That's quite a long time! In "how to make someone feel old" terms https://xkcd.com/891/, that talk was closer to when I defended my thesis than the present day.

It's 4 years since I announced that the Kaplansky unit conjecture for group rings is false https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJEabykk8j8...

It's 4 years since I announced that the Kaplansky unit conjecture for group rings is false https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJEabykk8j8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaplansky%27s_conjectures. Here are a few thoughts on the occasion. 🧵

There should probably be big signs at international arrivals in German airports saying YOU WILL NEED CASH.

There should probably be big signs at international arrivals in German airports saying YOU WILL NEED CASH.

Since it's the solstice, here's a (rather alarming) graphic showing the UV index in Australia in January. It's roughly 2x what...

Since it's the solstice, here's a (rather alarming) graphic showing the UV index in Australia in January. It's roughly 2x what Germany experiences in summer.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/maps/averages/uv-index/?period=jan

There should probably be big signs at international arrivals in Australian airports saying YOU WILL NEED SUNSCREEN.

I'm advocating to mimic the notation H10 generally so that e.g. Hilbert's 8th problem (i.e. the Riemann hypothesis) is just called...

I'm advocating to mimic the notation H10 generally so that e.g. Hilbert's 8th problem (i.e. the Riemann hypothesis) is just called H8. This might be an unpopular proposal, but, you know, haters gonna hate.

Julia Robinson was #botd 105 years ago. She played a crucial role in the resolution of Hilbert's 10th problem (known as H10 to friends)....

Julia Robinson was #botd 105 years ago. She played a crucial role in the resolution of Hilbert's 10th problem (known as H10 to friends). Hilbert asked for an algorithm to decide whether a multivariate polynomial equation with integral coefficients has an integral solution. The answer is the desired algorithm cannot exist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Robinson

Pro tip: when you get a new linux machine, start by downloading some big files in the terminal. That way you'll have more time to react...

Pro tip: when you get a new linux machine, start by downloading some big files in the terminal. That way you'll have more time to react if you ever accidentally run "source ~/.bash_history" instead of "source ~/.bashrc" 😅 #DontTryThisAtHome !

It seems like on macOS, smashing Ctrl-C in panic won't save you 💀

The B. in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stands for Benoit B. Mandelbrot.#funfact

The B. in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stands for Benoit B. Mandelbrot.

#funfact

My favourite number field is ℚ, followed by ℚ(ζ₈) .

My favourite number field is ℚ, followed by ℚ(ζ₈) .

New and improved v2 of my paper disproving the unit conjecture in characteristic zero is on the arXiv today. I also corrected the...

New and improved v2 of my paper disproving the unit conjecture in characteristic zero is on the arXiv today. I also corrected the embarrassing mistake of not including the code with v1. Lesson learned: if you run

zip paper.zip paper.tex paper.bbl anc/

then the arXiv upload will tell you that your zip file contains something called "anc" which is of type "Ancillary files directory", but not that the directory is empty 🤦

You've got to run "zip -r" to actually include the files in anc.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.05240

I'm not slacking off, mathlib is compiling! #lean4https://xkcd.com/303/

I'm not slacking off, mathlib is compiling! #lean4

https://xkcd.com/303/

We just put v2 of https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.02193 and https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.01331 up. The former is now much more general, using the...

We just put v2 of https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.02193 and https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.01331 up. The former is now much more general, using the theory developed in the latter.