# All Questions

9k views

### Books you would like to see translated into English.

I have recently been told of a proposal to produce an English translation of Landau's Handbuch der Lehre von der Verteilung der Primzahlen, and this prompts me to ask a more general question: ...
23k views

### Which mathematicians have influenced you the most? [closed]

There are mathematicians whose creativity, insight and taste have the power of driving anyone into a world of beautiful ideas, which can inspire the desire, even the need for doing mathematics, or can ...
4k views

### The error in Petrovski and Landis' proof of the 16th Hilbert problem

What was the main error in the proof of the second part of the 16th Hilbert problem by Petrovski and Landis? Please see this related post and also the following post. Added : According to their ...
220 views

### Bunnity of multilinear maps

Is there a way to compute the following nullity of multilinear maps? As it is different from any nullity I know of, I call it bunnity after myself:-)) If it already has a name, it be nice to know it. ...
283 views

### How is $\sum_{x \in X(\mathbb{F}_q)} \dots$ a generalization of cardinality?

This quarter Maxim Kontsevich is offering a course on exponential integral. There is not much in the way of notes, but is one page with mysterious comments. Let $X$ be an algebraic variety over ...
193 views

### Rank changes with matrix edits

Assume we have rank $r$ real matrix $M\in\{0,1\}^{n\times n}$ (not constrained to symmetric). Assume $W\in\{0,1\}^{n\times n}$ is rank $1$ real matrix. Case $1$: $M+W\in\{0,1\}^{n\times n}$. Could ...
119 views

### Asymptotics of Fresnel integrals

It is known that \begin{equation*} I(p) = \sqrt { \frac {4 \mathrm{i} p} {\pi}}\int \limits _{-\infty} ^{\infty} \mathrm{e}^{- \mathrm{i} p x^2} \varphi (x) \mathrm{d}x \end{equation*} is a bounded ...
11k views

### Work of plenary speakers at ICM 2014

The next International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) will take place in 2014 in Seoul, Korea. The present question is meant to gather brief overviews of the work of the plenary speakers for the ICM ...
5k views

### How to write popular mathematics well?

Recently, some classmates and I were lamenting the fact that our classmates in other disciplines had almost no conception of what we did, despite the large mathematics population at Waterloo. Instead ...
4k views

### Examples where it's useful to know that a mathematical object belongs to some family of objects

For an expository piece I'm writing, it would be useful to have good examples of the following phenomenon: (1) ${\cal X}$ is a parameterized family of somethings. (Varieties, schemes, manifolds, ...
17k views

### Why is differentiating mechanics and integration art?

It is often said that "Differentiation is mechanics, integration is art." We have more or less simple rules in one direction but not in the other (e.g. product rule/simple <-> integration by ...
400 views

### Evidence that Graph Isomorphism problem is not $NP$-complete

Graph isomorphism problem is one of the longest standing problems that resisted classification into $P$ or $NP$-complete problems. We have evidences that it can not be $NP$-complete. Firstly, Graph ...
5k views

### Have you solved problems in your sleep? [closed]

I have hit upon major (for me—relative to my trivial accomplishments) insights in my research in various sleep-deprived altered states of consciousness, e.g., long solo car-drives extending ...
2k views

### Negative impact of wrong or non-rigorous proofs

The recent talks of Voevodsky (for example, http://www.math.ias.edu/~vladimir/Site3/Univalent_Foundations_files/2014_IAS.pdf), which describe subtle errors in proofs by him as well as others, as well ...
4k views

### How did “normal” come to mean “perpendicular”?

How and when did the word "normal" acquire this meaning? When I first thought of this, I couldn't really come up with any explanation that wasn't complete speculation -- pretty much all I was able to ...
1k views

### Why are we interested in the Fundamental Groupoid of a Space?

The classical version of the van Kampen theorem is concerned about the fundamental group of a based space. In fact, it says that the functor $\pi_1$ preserves certain types of pushouts in $Top_*$. ...
12k views

### What's your favorite equation, formula, identity or inequality? [closed]

Certain formulas I really enjoy looking at like the Euler-Maclaurin formula or the Leibniz integral rule. What's your favorite equation, formula, identity or inequality?
45k views

### What programming languages do mathematicians use? [closed]

I understand this might be a slightly subjective question, but I am honestly curious what programming languages are used by the mathematics community. I would imagine that there is a group of ...
1k views

### Does every set of reals contain a measure-zero set of the same cardinality? Does it contain a meager set of the same cardinality?

This question arises from an issue in my post on Ashutosh's excellent question on Restrictions of the null/meager ideal. Question 1. Does every set of reals contain a measure-zero subset of the same ...
292 views

### Number of Dyck paths with k returns and b peaks

The number of Dyck paths from the origin to $(2n,0)$ which touch the $x$-axis $k+2$ times ($k$ internal touches) is given by $$\frac{k}{2n-k}{2n-k \choose n}.$$ The number of Dyck paths from the ...
199 views

### The weighting function for the infinite product of necklaces

Let us consider the limit $\lim_{n\to \infty}\prod_{p=1}^n N(p,a)$ where $N(n,a)$ is the number of fixed necklaces of length $n$ composed of $a$ types of beads. Let's rewrite the product in a way ...
11k views

### What is torsion in differential geometry intuitively?

Hi, given a connection on the tangent space of a manifold, one can define its torsion: $$T(X,Y):=\triangledown_X Y - \triangledown_Y X - [X,Y]$$ What is the geometric picture behind this ...
9k views

### Are there any very hard unknots?

Some years ago I took a long piece of string, tied it into a loop, and tried to twist it up into a tangle that I would find hard to untangle. No matter what I did, I could never cause the later me any ...
748 views

### Examples of Einstein four-manifolds of negative sectional curvature

Are there any nontrivial compact Einstein four-manifolds of negative or nonpositive sectional curvature? by nontrivial we mean not quotients of $\mathbb{H}^4$, $\mathbb{C}H^2$, ...
15k views

### What's the “best” proof of quadratic reciprocity?

For my purposes, you may want to interpret "best" as "clearest and easiest to understand for undergrads in a first number theory course," but don't feel too constrained.
12k views

### Do you read the masters?

I often hear the advice, "Read the masters" (i.e., read old, classic texts by great mathematicians). But frankly, I have hardly ever followed it. What I am wondering is, is this a principle that ...
381 views

### Relationship between Hochschild cohomology and Drinfeld centers

Let $HH_*(A,N)$ (or $HH^*(A,N)$) be the Hochschild homology (or cohomology) of an associative algebra $A$ with coefficients in an $A$-bimodule $N$. I was reading nlab's entry on Hochschild cohomology ...
3k views

### What is an étale theta function?

Let me start out by urging you to take seriously that whatever I write about the papers surrounding IUTT really are questions. If you would like to use it as a guide to the mathematics in any way, ...
370 views

### How to compute $\pi_{3}$ of $L(p,q)\# L(p',q')$?

Let $L(p,q)$ be a 3-dimensional lens space, and let $L(p',q')$ be another. Is there any known result concerning the 3rd homotopy group of the connected sum $L(p,q)\# L(p',q')$? If not, I am interested ...
41k views

### Where to buy premium white chalk in the U.S., like they have at RIMS?

While not a research-level math question, I'm sure this is a question of interest to many research-level mathematicians, whose expertise I seek. At RIMS (in Kyoto) in 2005, they had the best white ...
178 views

### Rank of a sequence of covariance matrices

Let $X_i$ ($i=1, \dots$) be an orthonormal basis for $L^2(\Omega, \mathbb P)$. In particular, it holds that $$\mathbb E[X_iX_j] = \delta_{ij}.$$ Now take $Z\in L^2(\Omega, \mathbb P)$ and define ...
233 views

### New series for $1/\pi$ based on Ramanujan's ideas

In his classic paper "Modular Equations and Approximations to $\pi$ (1914)", Ramanujan gives a standard technique to obtain a general family of series for $1/\pi$ based on series for $(2K/\pi)^{2}$ in ...
345 views

### Topological retraction vs categorical retraction

Let $(X,\tau)$ be a topological space. We say that $A\subseteq X$ is a topological retract if there is a continuous map $r:X\to A$ onto a subspace $A \subseteq X$ such that for all $a\in A$ we have ...
9k views

### Is the boundary $\partial S$ analogous to a derivative?

Without prethought, I mentioned in class once that the reason the symbol $\partial$ is used to represent the boundary operator in topology is that its behavior is akin to a derivative. But after ...
145 views
+50

### Non invertibility of certain integral arising from group action

Let a compact topological group $G$ with invariant measure $\mu,$ acts on a simply connected compact topological space $X$ and $\rho$ is a $n$-dimensional unitary representation of $G$. ...
317 views

### Breaking up the free Lie algebra into Gl irreps

The free Lie algebra $L(V)$ generated by an $r$-dimensional vector space $V$ is, in the language of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Lie_algebra , the free Lie algebra generated by any choice of ...
583 views

### Hilbert Class Field Galois over Q?

So if we have a Galois extension $K/\mathbb{Q}$, then the Hilbert Class Field $H$ of $K$ is certainly Galois over $\mathbb{Q}$. But is the converse true? I know many examples of nongalois ...
6k views

### Why are flat morphisms “flat?”

Of course "flatness" is a word that evokes a very particular geometric picture, and it seems to me like there should be a reason why this word is used, but nothing I can find gives me a reason! Is ...