Author Archives: Persiflage

Ventotene, Part II

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Persiflage

I promised to return to a more mathematical summary of the conference in Ventotene, and indeed I shall do so in the next two posts. One of the themes of the conference was bounding the order of the torsion subgroup … Continue reading →

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Best seat in the house

Posted on March 6, 2016 by Persiflage

I recently attended an András Schiff recital at Chicago Symphony Center (not the first such Schiff performance I have been to). The conceit of this concert was the “last sonatas,” a performance of the last sonatas of Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, … Continue reading →

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Hilbert Modular Forms of Partial Weight One, Part III

Posted on October 17, 2015 by Persiflage

My student Richard Moy is graduating! Richard’s work has already appeared on this blog before, where we discussed his joint work with Joel Specter showing that there existed non-CM Hilbert modular forms of partial weight one. Today I want to … Continue reading →

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Ventotene, part I

Posted on September 24, 2015 by Persiflage

I recently returned from Ventotene, an Island some 40 miles west of Naples, where I attended a very pleasant conference on Manifolds and Groups. I have several mathematical thoughts on the conference, but for today I will content myself to … Continue reading →

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The distance of the moon

Posted on August 30, 2015 by Persiflage

Having just re-read the delightful Italo Calvino story of this name (which you can read here), I was also entranced by the following animation: Also: my take on the pronunciation of the name of the narrator: the first f is … Continue reading →

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Music in London

Posted on July 21, 2015 by Persiflage

London is a wonderful city, an I can certainly imagine moving there if I suddenly happen to become a Russian oligarch. One thing that is absolutely fantastic is the classical music scene, which is surely the best in the world. … Continue reading →

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Course Announcement

Posted on June 9, 2015 by Persiflage

Although this may be of limited interest, I wanted to announce a topics class that I intend to give this winter. The title of the course is, simply, “thesis problems.” The structure of the course is to devote each week … Continue reading →

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A Coq and Bull Story

Posted on June 4, 2015 by Persiflage

Author: Michael Harris. Title: Mathematics Without Apologies. Source: I eventually gave up waiting for a complimentary signed copy to be sent to me in the mail, and so borrowed a copy from the Northwestern University library. I’ve read up to … Continue reading →

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Harassed by Springer

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Persiflage

Those of you who have ever submitted a paper to any mathematical journal may have noticed that it’s not a particularly speedy process. Nowadays, even a one year turnaround is nothing out of the ordinary. Thus, I always find it … Continue reading →

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Counting solutions to a_p = λ

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Persiflage

We know that the eigenvalue of \(T_2\) on \(\Delta\) is \(24.\) Are there any other level one cusp forms with the same Hecke eigenvalue? Maeda’s conjecture in its strongest form certainly implies that there does not. But what can one … Continue reading →

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