Author Archives: Persiflage

The True Heirs To Ramanujan

If you are in need of some light relief, you could do worse than peruse the opinions of Doron Zeilberger, who, if viewed strictly through the lens of these ramblings, appears to have a relationship with theoretical mathematics something along … Continue reading

Posted in Mathematics, Rant | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Public Displays of Mathematics

Let me start by saying that I’m in favor of making the effort to both educate the public about mathematics (as well as science more generally) and to convey to them a sense of the excitement of our discipline. But … Continue reading

Posted in Mathematics, Rant | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

MSRI Now

Continuing on the theme of the last post (Buzzard related viral videos), you can now view Buzzard’s MSRI course (in progress at the time of this post) online here. Having previously excoriated MSRI for restricting how many people can attend … Continue reading

Posted in Mathematics | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Redraw the Balance

This video would be inspiring even if it didn’t star someone that I know: I suspect that Tamzin’s other youtube video will probably not end up with 20+ million views, being somewhat more…technical, I guess you could say. Of course, … Continue reading

Posted in Politics | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

New Results in Modularity, Part II

This is part two of series on work in progress with Patrick Allen, Ana Caraiani, Toby Gee, David Helm, Bao Le Hung, James Newton, Peter Scholze, Richard Taylor, and Jack Thorne. Click here for Part I It has been almost … Continue reading

Posted in Mathematics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

New Results In Modularity, Part I

I usually refrain from talking directly about my papers, and this reticence stems from wishing to avoid any appearance of tooting my own horn. On the other hand, nobody else seems to be talking about them either. Moreover, I have … Continue reading

Posted in Mathematics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

In defense of Theresa May

Nothing gives me more sympathy for Theresa May^* (or less respect for the Economist) than the following line from this article: Mrs May made do with a dowdier college and relaxed by watching “The Goodies”, a particularly dire comedy. Sacrilege! … Continue reading

Posted in Politics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Elementary Class Groups Updated

In a previous post, I gave a short argument showing that, for odd primes p and N such that \(N \equiv -1 \mod p,\) the p-class group of \(\mathbf{Q}(N^{1/p})\) is non-trivial. This post is just to remark that the same … Continue reading

Posted in Mathematics | 4 Comments

Thoughts on Paris

Nothing is more pretentious or annoying than when an American offers, uninvited, their opinions of Paris. Here, then, are some of mine. Starting the day with a two hour lecture on elliptic integals:OUI: Who does not get a slight frisson … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Who proved it first?

During Joel Specter’s thesis defense, he started out by remarking that the \(q\)-expansion: \(\displaystyle{f = q \prod_{n=1}^{\infty} (1 – q^n)(1 – q^{23 n}) = \sum a_n q^n}\) is a weight one modular forms of level \(\Gamma_1(23),\) and moreover, for \(p\) … Continue reading

Posted in Mathematics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments