Category: Mathematics

For some reason, filling the MSC codes for my papers always feels a bit of a chore; I often have the impression that none of the headings really correspond to what I’ve done, and I’ve found in the past that looking for the right one in a PDF version of the classification is not very efficient. But the tiddlywiki version of the new 2010 classification promises to make things easier: it’s a single HTML file which, through some javascript magic, can be used to dig inside in outliner fashion (expand/unexpand), and which — once downloaded and stored locally — can be freely annotated. Moreover, I can even do that on my android phone and explore the minutiae of the classification during my tramway rides…

But I already noticed that I’ll probably continue feeling perplexed when selecting MSC numbers: for instance, there does not seem to be any item that fits the topic of expander graphs… It seems one has to use an unsatisfactory mixture of 05C40 (“Combinatorics : Graph theory : Connectivity”) and 05C50 (“Combinatorics : Graph Theory : Graphs and linear algebra (matrices, eigenvalues, etc.)”). I’m sure that if I (or anyone else) had pointed this out during the process that ended with the current version of MSC 2010, this would have been corrected, but it is now probably too late until the next revision…

It will probably not come as a surprise to most readers that I like exponential sums, especially over finite fields. I’m therefore very happy to announce a conference on the topic of

Exponential sums over finite fields and applications

that will be held at the Forschungsinstitut für Mathematik of ETH, during the week of November 1 to November 5, 2010. This conference is organized by N. Katz, P. Michel, R. Pink and myself.

The web site

http://www.math.ethz.ch/~kowalski/exponential-sums.html

is now up, with a preliminary list of speakers and an unofficial poster

(the official poster will come soon, its design will link the conference thematically with the other two number theory events that have been organized in Zürich this year, the Number Theory Days and the Rational Points conference.)

As indicated on the web site, there will be some support available for other participants, in particular PhD students and young researchers. Anyone interested in coming is invited to write to the contact email address: expsums@math.ethz.ch

There has been some recent lively discussion of ethical issues in hiring here.
Now what would you say of someone who, while Rektor of his provincial university in the town of G., visits a more prestigious foreign institution (no less than an Imperial one, in B.), accepts an offer to move there, does not mention it to anyone, twiddles and twaddles, and then reneges on the offer after he was supposed to have started teaching? Shocking, what?
I couldn’t help smiling when reading this synopsis of the employment history of L. Boltzmann, though the actual facts must have been quite distressing to the people involved (Boltzmann apparently once said that he knew much better “how to integrate than how to intrigue” — I’d like to see the original German, of course, but there was no reference in the book I’m reading). He was in Graz for 14 years, got an offer from Berlin in 1888, accepted, reneged (and had to be relieved of his duties by the Kaiser — though I don’t know which one; there were three in 1888, apparently)… and instead of staying in Graz as one might have expected after turning down one of the juiciest positions available at the time, he went on a true whirlwind of moves and changes during the following years (first to Münich, then to Vienna, then to Leipzig, then back to Vienna…)

I wish to thank the 50 individuals (or institutions) who bought a copy of my book on the large sieve last year! I’ll be happy to offer a beer (or any other drink) to any one of you who happens to spend some time in Zürich — even if this was an impulse buy due to its brush with literary celebrity, or a wish to see how the contents stacked up against such competition as Baboon Metaphysics.

Note: no need to bring a receipt to get the drink; I’m a trusting person. (Though there will be an interesting pigeon-hole problem once I’ve paid for 60 or 70 drinks…)

Irrelevant note: the happy few is a reference en anglais dans le texte to the quotation at the end of Stendhal’s La Chartreuse de Parme (one of my favorite French novels); I’ve just done my second Wikipedia edit by removing the claim that he used it for Le rouge et le noir (in the English entry).

Richard Dedekind, 1858:

Die Betrachtungen, welche den Gegenstand dieser kleinen Schrift bilden, stammen aus dem Herbst des Jahres 1858. Ich befand mich damals als Professor am eidgenössischen Polytechnicum zu Zürich zum ersten Male in der Lage, die Elemente der Differentialrechnung vortragen zu müssen, und fühlte dabei empfindlicher als jemals frührer den Mangel einer wirklich wissenschaftlichen Begründung der Arithmetik

(in Stetigkeit und irrationale Zahlen, where Dedekind cuts are introduced); translation by W.W. Beman:

My attention was first directed toward the considerations which form the subject of this pamphlet in the autumn of 1858. As professor in the Polytechnic School in Zürich I found myself for the first time obliged to lecture upon the elements of the differential calculus and felt more keenly than ever before the lack of a really scientific foundation for arithmetic.