# All Questions

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### 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 ...
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### 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 ...
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### 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 ...
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### 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 $Top_*$. ...
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### 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?
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### 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 ...
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### 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 ...
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### A commutative Banach algebra with an abundance of discountinuous functions

Let $A$ be the algebra of all bounded functions from $[0,\;1]$ to $\mathbb{C}$. For $f\in A,\;$ $\omega_{f}$ is the standard oscillation function.. Each of the following two (equivalent) norms ...
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### 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 ...
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### How to respond to “I was never much good at maths at school.” [closed]

We've all heard it. I even got it in Norwegian recently. It's number 1 on the list of responses to the statement "I'm a mathematician.". Does anyone have any good comebacks? What other responses ...
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### 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 ...
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### 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 ...
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### 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 ...
753 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 $\mathbb{H}^4$, $\mathbb{C}H^2$, ...
514 views

### Green's function of the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck operator

The Ornstein-Uhlenbeck operator $L$ is given by $$Lu = \Delta u- \frac{1}{2}x\cdot \nabla u.$$ Is there a known closed form expression of the Green's function of $L$ on $\mathbb R^d$ (for $d\geq 2$ ...
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### 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.
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### 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 ...
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### What are some mathematical sculptures?

Either intentionally or unintentionally. Include location and sculptor, if known.
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### 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, ...
371 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 ...
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### real symmetric matrix has real eigenvalues - elementary proof

Every real symmetric matrix has at least one real eigenvalue. Does anyone know how to prove this elementary, that is without the notion of complex numbers?
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 ...
26k views

### Applications of the Chinese remainder theorem

As the title suggests I am interested in CRT applications. Wikipedia article on CRT lists some of the well known applications (e.g. used in the RSA algorithm, used to construct an elegant Gödel ...
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 ...
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### 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 ...
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### Asymptotic dimension of $C'(1/6)$ small cancellation groups

Do there exist finitely presented $C'(1/6)$ small cancellation groups with arbitrarily high asymptotic dimension? To offer a little more motivation, Roe proves that all hyperbolic groups have finite ...
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### Hankel matrix commuting with a Jacobi matrix

Assume the semi-infinite Hankel matrix $H$ with entries $$H_{i,j}=\alpha_{i+j-1}, \quad i,j\geq1,$$ where $\alpha_{n}\in\mathbb{R}$, is given. It turns out that in some special situations a ...
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### 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 ...
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### 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 ...
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### 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 ...
584 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 ...
19k views

### Top specialized journals

In geometry/topology, there are (at least) three specialized journals that end up publishing a large fraction of the best papers in the subject -- Geometry and Topology, JDG, and GAFA. What journals ...
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### What do heat kernels have to do with the Riemann-Roch theorem and the Gauss-Bonnet theorem?

I know the following facts. (Don't assume I know much more than the following facts.) The Atiyah-Singer index theorem generalizes both the Riemann-Roch theorem and the Gauss-Bonnet theorem. The ...
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### Does every smooth, projective morphism to $\mathbb{C}P^1$ admit a section?

Possibly this has already been asked, but it came up again in this question of Daniel Litt. Does every smooth, projective morphism $f:Y\to \mathbb{C}P^1$ admit a section, i.e., a morphism ...

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