Author Archives: Persiflage

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 →

Posted in Teaching | Tagged , | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in Book Review | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in Politics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in Mathematics | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

144169

Posted on May 12, 2015 by Persiflage

The space of classical modular cuspforms of level one and weight 24 has dimension two — the smallest weight for which the dimension is not zero or one. What can we say about the Hecke algebra acting on this space … Continue reading →

Posted in Mathematics | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

How not to be wrong

Posted on May 7, 2015 by Persiflage

I recently finished listening to Jordan’s book “how not to be wrong,” and thought that I would record some of the notes I made. Unlike other reviews, Persiflage will cut through to the key aspects of the book which perhaps … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Review | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Chenevier on the Eigencurve

Posted on April 24, 2015 by Persiflage

Today I wanted to mention a theorem of Chenever about components of the Eigencurve. Let \(\mathcal{W}\) denote weight space (which is basically a union of discs), and let \(\pi: \mathcal{E} \rightarrow \mathcal{W}\) be the Coleman-Mazur eigencurve together with its natural … Continue reading →

Posted in Mathematics | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What does it take to get a raise?

Posted on April 6, 2015 by Persiflage

Gauss … [had] a salary that remained fixed from 1807 to 1824. (see here.) What was Gauss’ salary? My limited google skills were not able to find this information, although I’m not sure how meaningful it would be to translate … Continue reading →

Posted in Waffle | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The seven types of graduate student applicant

Posted on March 29, 2015 by Persiflage

Yes, it’s that time of year again. Hide and Seek: Contacts you every day about the status of their application, then goes on radio silence the moment they receive an offer, never to be heard of again. The No Chancer: … Continue reading →

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

Only Harvard Grads need apply

Posted on March 18, 2015 by Persiflage

It’s hard to take articles in Slate too seriously, but I have to admit I was quite perplexed about the following article (with the concomitant research publication here). The main thrust of the article seems to be as follows. A … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics, Rant | Tagged , | Leave a comment