The geometry of social networks
A key insight of general relativity is the view of the universe as a four-dimensional geometric space. Gravitation and other forces within physics are explained as properties of the geometry. Analogously, string theory includes many dimensions, as many as ten or more, in an effort to explain all the forces of the universe. Given the geometry…
abc and d: The abc conjecture and Mochizuki
Mathematician love to chase after conjectures, which are unsolved mathematical claims. There are thousands of conjectures, but the tough ones are sometimes famous. For example, the Poincare conjecture makes a claim about shapes in three dimensions, as part of the field of topology. It was recently solved by Grigori Perelman, and resulted with him being awarded then…
Midpoint in India
I’m about midway through my India journey. I don’t have much time travelling between conferences in Chennai and Coimbatore, so my post is short. The wifi at the University is also spotty, which makes connectivity a challenge. I’m posting on Tuesday (not my usual Wednesday), as tomorrow is a travel day. Chennai seems to be…
Publish or perish: an introduction to publishing in journals
As I learned years ago as a graduate student, if you don’t publish in some form, you won’t get far as an academic. My own graduate students typically know very little about how academic publishing works when they begin their studies. The purpose of this post is to give some pointers to those just starting out on…