Questions tagged [reference-request]

This tag is used if a reference is needed in a paper or textbook on a specific result.

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72 votes
3 answers
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Has the mathematical content of Grothendieck's "Récoltes et Semailles" been used?

This question is partly motivated by Never appeared forthcoming papers. Motivation Grothendieck's "Récoltes et Semailles" has been cited on various occasions on this forum. See for instance ...
Jonathan Chiche's user avatar
63 votes
19 answers
96k views

Suggestions for a good Measure Theory book

I have taken analysis and have looked at different measures, but I am currently looking at realizing a certain problem in a different light and feel that I need a better background in various measures ...
63 votes
6 answers
12k views

Why isn't integral defined as the area under the graph of function?

In order to define Lebesgue integral, we have to develop some measure theory. This takes some effort in the classroom, after which we need additional effort of defining Lebesgue integral (which also ...
user57888's user avatar
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60 votes
1 answer
6k views

What were the main ideas and gaps in Yoichi Miyaoka's attempted proof (1988) of Fermat's Last Theorem?

Out of sheer curiosity I have been reading Stewert and Tall's "Algebraic Number Theory and Fermat's Last Theorem" (2001). As it contains various bits of history, I found out to my own shame that I was ...
M.G.'s user avatar
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57 votes
7 answers
8k views

Maryam Mirzakhani's works

Maryam Mirzakhani has made several contributions to the theory of moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces. Mirzakhani was awarded the Fields Medal in 2014 for "her outstanding contributions to the dynamics ...
user avatar
57 votes
16 answers
8k views

What are examples of books which teach the practice of mathematics?

One may classify the types of mathematics books written for students into two groups: books which merely teach mathematics (i.e., they present theorems and proofs, ready-made, as it were) and those ...
56 votes
4 answers
13k views

Group theory in machine learning

I'm a Machine Learning researcher who would like to research applications of group theory in ML. There is a term "Partially Observed Groups" in machine learning theory which has been ...
drosophyllum's user avatar
55 votes
9 answers
6k views

Proofs of theorems that proved more or deeper results than what was first supposed or stated as the corresponding theorem

Recently, I figured out that a colleague of mine has had published during recent years a proof of a theorem in which he was actually proving a deeper result which we both thought to be still open. ...
53 votes
13 answers
87k views

Good differential equations text for undergraduates who want to become pure mathematicians

Alright, so I have been taking a while to soak in as much advanced mathematics as an undergraduate as possible, taking courses in algebra, topology, complex analysis (a less rigorous undergraduate ...
53 votes
17 answers
15k views

Computer science for mathematicians

This is a big-list community question, so I'm sorry in advance if it is deemed too soft but I haven't seen anything similar yet. I've seen computer scientists post questions looking to learn things ...
51 votes
14 answers
13k views

Introductory text on geometric group theory?

Can someone indicate me a good introductory text on geometric group theory?
51 votes
7 answers
10k views

Triangulating surfaces

I've had a few undergraduate students ask me for references for the classical fact (due to Rado) that closed topological surfaces can be triangulated. I know two sources for this, namely Ahlfors's ...
Andy Putman's user avatar
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48 votes
2 answers
11k views

Kunneth formula for sheaf cohomology of varieties

What is a good reference for the following fact (the hypotheses may not be quite right): Let $X$ and $Y$ be projective varieties over a field $k$. Let $\mathcal{F}$ and $\mathcal{G}$ be coherent ...
Charles Staats's user avatar
47 votes
1 answer
3k views

Which small finite simple groups are not yet known to be Galois groups over Q?

The subject line pretty much says it all. To expand just a little bit: 1) What is the smallest simple group that is not yet known to occur as a Galois group over $\mathbb{Q}$? (Variants: not known ...
Pete L. Clark's user avatar
46 votes
4 answers
5k views

What is the source of this famous Grothendieck quote?

I've seen the following quote many times on the internet, and have used it myself. It is usually attributed to Grothendieck. It is better to have a good category with bad objects than a bad category ...
Daniel Moskovich's user avatar
44 votes
1 answer
2k views

Pach's "Animals": What if the genus is positive?

Janos Pach asked a deep question 23 years ago (1988) that remains unsolved today: Can every animal—a topological ball in $\mathbb{R^3}$ composed of unit cubes glued face-to-face—be ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
43 votes
3 answers
3k views

Is this integral representation of $\zeta(2n+1)$ known?

Background: I'm an undergraduate at an institution with no researchers in analytic number theory, and no ties to the analytic number theory community. I believe I have found what is, as far as I can ...
Andrew Knapp's user avatar
43 votes
4 answers
4k views

Lists as a foundation of mathematics

I am wondering if there is a foundation of mathematics where not sets or "set-like objects" (such as objects of a suitable topos as in ETCS) are the primitive notion, but rather lists. These ...
Martin Brandenburg's user avatar
42 votes
6 answers
3k views

What are good articles/books on the psychology of mathematical research?

I am thinking about advanced texts similar to Polya's 'How to solve it?'. Quite a few good articles of such a kind are published under Philosophy of Mathematics, but that dwells on a very different ...
42 votes
8 answers
2k views

How to quantify noncommutativity?

If I have two operators or finite-dimensional matrices $A$ and $B$, how can I quantify the amount to which they commute or don't commute? (I would consider it a big plus if it is computable easily for ...
Jiahao Chen's user avatar
  • 1,870
41 votes
2 answers
5k views

Homotopy groups of $S^2$

in the paper Foundations of the theory of bounded cohomology, by N.V. Ivanov, the author considers the complex of bounded singular cochains on a simply connected CW-complex $X$, and constructs a ...
Roberto Frigerio's user avatar
41 votes
10 answers
7k views

What is the shortest program for which halting is unknown?

In short, my question is: What is the shortest computer program for which it is not known whether or not the program halts? Of course, this depends on the description language; I also have the ...
Daniel Litt's user avatar
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41 votes
2 answers
16k views

Introductory text on Galois representations

Could someone please recommend a good introductory text on Galois representations? In particular, something that might help with reading Serre's "Abelian l-Adic Representations and Elliptic Curves" ...
40 votes
5 answers
3k views

Reference on Persistent Homology

I will be teaching a course on algebraic topology for MSc students and this semester, unlike previous ones where I used to begin with the fundamental group, I would like to start with ideas of ...
user51223's user avatar
  • 3,071
39 votes
10 answers
6k views

Dimensional Analysis in Mathematics

Is there a sensible and useful definition of units in mathematics? In other words, is there a theory of dimensional analysis for mathematics? In physics, an extremely useful tool is the Buckingham Pi ...
39 votes
2 answers
3k views

Volume of the unitary group

I saw a very remarkable asymptotic formula (or a conjecture?) for the volume of of the unitary group $ U(n)$ which is the following: $$\log[\mathrm{Volume}(U(n))] \sim_{n\rightarrow \infty} \frac{n^...
Max's user avatar
  • 1,607
39 votes
1 answer
5k views

Clausen's modified Hodge Conjecture

In a recent talk at the University of Geneve, Dustin Clausen presented a "modified Hodge Conjecture". I found the abstract intriguing but couldn't find videos or notes available online. If I'...
user avatar
38 votes
3 answers
4k views

Manifold of probability measures: connections between two types of metrics

The space of probability measures could be viewed as an infinite-dimensional manifold, equipped with two possible types of metrics — (1) Wasserstein and (2) Fisher-Rao. Metric (1) is connected with ...
Minkov's user avatar
  • 1,117
37 votes
11 answers
8k views

"Must read" papers in numerical analysis

In 1993, Prof. L.N. Trefethen published a NA-net posting with a list of thirteen paper he used for teaching the seminar Classic Papers in Numerical Analysis. In Trefethen's words, ... this course ...
37 votes
2 answers
6k views

What is Serre's condition (S_n) for sheaves?

The Serre's condition $(S_n)$, especially $(S_2)$, has been mentioned in a few MO answers: see here and here for example. I am pretty sure I have seen it in other questions as well, but could not ...
Hailong Dao's user avatar
  • 30.3k
37 votes
10 answers
18k views

Fast matrix multiplication

Suppose we have two $n$ by $n$ matrices over particular ring. We want to multiply them as fast as possible. According to wikipedia there is an algorithm of Coppersmith and Winograd that can do it in $...
ilyaraz's user avatar
  • 1,771
36 votes
3 answers
4k views

What are D-branes, really?

In the past couple years, I've read many words pertaining to "D-branes" without feeling I have fully comprehended them. In broad terms, I think I get what they're about: They're supposed to serve as ...
Dan Kneezel's user avatar
  • 1,405
36 votes
2 answers
3k views

The coupon collector's earworm

[EDITED mostly to report on the answer by Kevin Costello (and to improve the gp code at the end)] I thank Nicolas Dupont for the following question (and for permission to disseminate it further): ...
Noam D. Elkies's user avatar
36 votes
5 answers
6k views

What is the equivariant cohomology of a group acting on itself by conjugation?

This question makes sense for any topological group $G$, but I'd particularly like to know the answer for $G$ a compact, connected Lie group. $G$ acts on itself by conjugation. One has the equivariant ...
Tim Perutz's user avatar
  • 13.1k
35 votes
5 answers
8k views

A reference for geometric class field theory?

The classic reference of this topic is Serre's Algebraic Groups and Class Fields. However, many parts of this book use Weil's language, which I find quite hard to follow. Is there another reference ...
QcH's user avatar
  • 805
35 votes
4 answers
2k views

Why there is a relation among the second-order minors of a symmetric $4\times 4$ matrix?

A $4\times 4$ symmetric matrix $$ \left( \begin{array}{cccc} a_{11} & a_{12} & a_{13} & a_{14} \\ a_{12} & a_{22} & a_{23} & a_{24} \\ a_{13} & a_{23} & a_{33} & ...
Giovanni Moreno's user avatar
35 votes
7 answers
11k views

Fraktur symbols for Lie algebras

Does anyone know when and why the Fraktur script was introduced for Lie and other algebras—$\mathfrak{g}$, $\mathfrak{gl}_n$, $X/\mathfrak{g}$, $\mathfrak{g}\oplus\mathfrak{g}$, $\mathfrak{su}$, ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
34 votes
1 answer
3k views

Updates to Stanley's 1999 survey of positivity problems in algebraic combinatorics?

[I am a co-moderator of the recently started Open Problems in Algebraic Combinatorics blog and as a result starting doing some searching for existing surveys of open problems in algebraic ...
34 votes
4 answers
4k views

Surveys of Goodwillie Calculus

Is there a good general introduction to Goodwillie calculus out there, like a paper or publication that gives a general overview of the calculus as well as how it is useful and why we are interested ...
Jonathan Beardsley's user avatar
34 votes
5 answers
2k views

Forcing as a replacement of induction and diagonal arguments

Let me give some examples motivating the question. The use of forcing instead of induction: For this consider Cantor's theorem: Theorem 1. Any two countable dense linear orders $I, J$ without end ...
Mohammad Golshani's user avatar
34 votes
2 answers
3k views

Shimura-Taniyama-Weil VS Grothendieck's dessins

When listening to the beautiful lectures by Gilles Schaeffer at the SLC68, the following (perhaps crazy) question occurred to me: did anyone attempt (succeed?) to combinatorially prove modularity of ...
Abdelmalek Abdesselam's user avatar
34 votes
3 answers
7k views

Vanishing cycles in a nutshell?

To quote one source among many, "the general reference for vanishing cycles is [SGA 7] XIII and XV". Is there a more direct way to learn the main principles of this theory (i.e. without the language ...
jvo's user avatar
  • 1,121
33 votes
1 answer
1k views

$\int_0^\infty x \, [J_0(x)]^5 \, dx$: source and context, if any?

QUESTION Numerical calculation with gp (first to the default 38-digit precision, then tripled) supports the conjecture that $$ \int_0^\infty x \, [J_0(x)]^5 \, dx = \frac{\Gamma(1/15) \, \Gamma(2/15) ...
Noam D. Elkies's user avatar
33 votes
1 answer
4k views

Theme of Isbell duality

Let $C$ be a small category. Isbell duality provides an adjunction $\widehat{C} {{\mathcal{O} \atop \longrightarrow} \atop {\longleftarrow \atop \mathrm{Spec}}}\widehat{C^{\mathrm{op}}}^{\mathrm{op}}$....
Martin Brandenburg's user avatar
33 votes
2 answers
3k views

Functions whose gradient-descent paths are geodesics

Let $f(x,y)$ define a surface $S$ in $\mathbb{R}^3$ with a unique local minimum at $b \in S$. Suppose gradient descent from any start point $a \in S$ follows a geodesic on $S$ from $a$ to $b$. (Q1.) ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
33 votes
2 answers
2k views

What do cluster algebras tell us about Grassmannians?

One of the first examples of a cluster algebra given in Fomin and Zelevinsky's original paper is the homogeneous coordinate ring $\mathbb{C}[G_{2,n}]$ of the Grassmannian of planes in $\mathbb{C}^n$. ...
Matthew Pressland's user avatar
33 votes
4 answers
5k views

Is there a categorical treatment of dynamical systems?

Let $X$ be a set and $(T,\cdot)$ an abelian group. Is there a category of $T$-dynamical systems on $X$ which yields useful information about $X$ and $T$? More precisely, is there a category whose ...
Vidit Nanda's user avatar
  • 15.4k
32 votes
1 answer
5k views

Jet bundles and partial differential operators

A geometric way of looking at differential equations In the literature for the h-principle (for example Gromov's Partial differential relations or Eliashberg and Mishachev's Introduction to the h-...
Willie Wong's user avatar
  • 37.4k
32 votes
1 answer
4k views

How should a number theorist learn a modest amount of algebraic geometry?

A little bit vague, but I hope useful for the entire community. I am, by training, an analytic number theorist. I have managed to learn some algebraic geometry, by reading parts of Silverman's ...
32 votes
3 answers
2k views

Are these fast convergent series for $\log(2)$, $\log(3)$ and $\log(5)$ already known and proven?

Updated on Feb.16.2024 Fortunately for three of these series, Eqs. (1), (3) and (4), I have found a proof using classical methods which I placed in the Answers section below. (I doubt that there is a ...
Jorge Zuniga's user avatar
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