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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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3 answers
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Non-stably trivial bundle with trivial characteristic classes

Though it's relatively clear that the characteristic classes do not characterise a vector bundle (and after looking through some books) I could not find an example of a vector bundle which is not ...
ARG's user avatar
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20 votes
7 answers
9k views

Elementary reference for algebraic groups

I'm looking for a reference on algebraic groups which requires only knowledge of basic material on the theory of varieties which you could find in, for example, Basic Algebraic Geometry 1 by ...
David Corwin's user avatar
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20 votes
2 answers
1k views

Belyi functions on non-compact surfaces; or: Building Riemann surfaces from equilateral triangles

Some background on (compact) Belyi surfaces $\newcommand{\Ch}{\hat{\mathbb{C}}}$ A compact Riemann surface $X$ is called a Belyi surface if there exists a branched covering map $f:X\to \Ch$ such that $...
Lasse Rempe's user avatar
  • 6,548
20 votes
6 answers
4k views

Graph theory from a category theory perspective

Are there any textbooks on graph theory written for a category theorist? It would probably have to be on directed graph theory, but if there's some trick we can use to talk about undirected graphs as ...
19 votes
1 answer
2k views

Homotopy fiber of a map between classifying spaces

I'm looking for a reference (and precise hypothesis if more are needed) for the following facts (or a correction, if I'm just plain wrong): Let $G$ and $H$ be topological groups and $f : G \to H$ be a ...
Omar Antolín-Camarena's user avatar
19 votes
7 answers
6k views

CW-structures and Morse functions: a reference request

The following is probably well known, but I wasn't able to locate a reference in the literature. Let $f$ be a Morse function on a smooth compact manifold $M$ without boundary and let $\rho$ be a ...
algori's user avatar
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19 votes
5 answers
5k views

Are there textbooks on logic where the references to set theory appear only after the construction of set theory?

This is cross posted from MathStackExchange. Since this is a reference request, I believe there will not be duplications of efforts in answers. This is also related to the question here. In textbooks ...
Sergei Akbarov's user avatar
19 votes
0 answers
604 views

How is this group theoretic construct called?

Let $G$ be a finite group, $S\subset G$ a generating set, $|g| = |g|_S = $ word length with respect to $S$. Define the "defect" of $g,h$ to be $$\psi(g,h) = |g|+|h|-|gh|$$ Then $\psi:G\times G \...
user avatar
19 votes
1 answer
3k views

Infinite convex combinations in a Banach space

Let's say that a subset $C$ of a Banach space $X$ is $\sigma$-convex if the following property holds: For any sequence $(x_k)_{k\ge0}$ in $C$, and for any sequence of non-negative real numbers $(\...
Pietro Majer's user avatar
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19 votes
3 answers
2k views

what is a spinor structure?

There are of course lots of definitions and references for this, but in the same way that, on a manifold $M$, a Riemannian metric is a section of positive definite symmetric bilinear forms on $TM$ or ...
ARG's user avatar
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18 votes
2 answers
1k views

What sort of cardinal number is the Löwenheim–Skolem number for second-order logic?

In their paper “On Löwenheim–Skolem–Tarski numbers for extensions of first order logic”, Magidor and Väänänen make the following statement: “For second order logic, $\mathrm{LS}(L^{2})$ [the Löwenheim–...
Thomas Benjamin's user avatar
18 votes
2 answers
3k views

References for Artin motives

I find the following description of Artin motives in Wikipedia. Since these seem to be quite related to number theory, I am interested to learn more in that context. I request the experts available in ...
Anweshi's user avatar
  • 7,442
18 votes
11 answers
5k views

Applications of measure, integration and Banach spaces to combinatorics

I'm going to be teaching a Master's level analysis course (measure theory, Lebesgue integration, Banach and Hilbert spaces, and if there's time, some spectral or PDE stuff) in the fall. My problem is ...
Gordon Craig's user avatar
  • 1,665
18 votes
15 answers
14k views

undergraduate logic textbook

I am going to teach the standard undergraduate Logic course for math and engineering majors. What are good (bad) text-books and why. I have not taught that course for a while and wonder if there are ...
18 votes
3 answers
1k views

What happened to the fourth paper in the series "On the classification of primitive ideals for complex classical Lie algebras" by Garfinkle?

In a series of papers in Compositio Math. entitled On the classification of primitive ideals for complex classical Lie algebras I, II and III, Garfinkle describes an algorithm that allows one to ...
Tobias Kildetoft's user avatar
17 votes
1 answer
458 views

The sparsest planar net that captures every unit segment

Let $\cal C = \lbrace C_i \rbrace$ be a collection of rectifiable curves in the plane with the property that every unit-length segment meets at least one curve in at least one point. Call such a ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
17 votes
4 answers
2k views

Geometric interpretations of the exponential of entropy

Question: Might there be a natural geometric interpretation of the exponential of entropy in Classical and Quantum Information theory? This question occurred to me recently via a geometric inequality ...
Aidan Rocke's user avatar
  • 3,871
17 votes
4 answers
2k views

reference request : constructive measure theory

As the title said, I would like to know if constructive measure theory has been developed somewhere ? I am more precisely interested in the (constructive) theory of completely continuous valuation on ...
Simon Henry's user avatar
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17 votes
1 answer
3k views

Is $x^{n}-x-1$ irreducible?

Is it true that for every $n \in \mathbb{N}$, $x^{n}-x-1$ is irreducible in $\mathbb{Z}[x]$? The standard irreducibility criteria seem to fail.
Pablo's user avatar
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17 votes
3 answers
2k views

What is the state of the art for algorithmic knot simplification?

Question: Given a `hard' diagram of a knot, with over a hundred crossings, what is the best algorithm and software tool to simplify it? Will it also simplify virtual knot diagrams, tangle diagrams, ...
Daniel Moskovich's user avatar
17 votes
1 answer
1k views

Looking for a copy of Leo Harrington's unpublished notes on the first nonprojectible ordinal

Sometime around 1975, Leo Harrington wrote a set of notes, apparently 13 pages long, entitled Kolmogorov's $R$-operator and the first nonprojectible ordinal. I do not know how widely they were ...
Gro-Tsen's user avatar
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16 votes
3 answers
1k views

Reference for representation theory of SL_2(Z/n)

There are many references for the representation theory (say over $\mathbf C$) of $\operatorname{SL}_2(\mathbf{F}_q)$ and $\operatorname{GL}_2(\mathbf{F}_q)$, for instance lecture 5 in Fulton--Harris &...
Dan Petersen's user avatar
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16 votes
2 answers
731 views

A reference to a characterization of metric spaces admitting an isometric embedding into a Hilbert space

I am looking for a reference to the bipartite version of the Schoenberg's criterion of embeddability into a Hilbert space. The Schoenberg criterion is formulated as Proposition 8.5(ii) of the book &...
Taras Banakh's user avatar
  • 41.9k
16 votes
2 answers
820 views

Klee's trick --- more applications

In his "Some topological properties..." (1955), Klee gave a construction (simple and beautiful) of an isotopy $h_t\colon\mathbb{R}^{2\cdot n}\to \mathbb{R}^{2\cdot n}$ which moves any compact set $K$ ...
Anton Petrunin's user avatar
16 votes
1 answer
1k views

Random polycube shapes

I am wondering if it is hopeless to obtain any firm results on the following model of a "random polycube shape." First, a polycube in $\mathbb{R}^3$ is a connected face-to-face gluing of unit cubes. (...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
16 votes
1 answer
2k views

Normal approximation of tail probability in binomial distribution

My problem: From the Berry--Esseen theorem I know, that $$\sup_{x\in\mathbb R}|P(B_n \le x)-\Phi(x)|=O\left(\frac 1{\sqrt n}\right),$$ where $B_n$ has the standardized binomial distribution and $\Phi$ ...
Stephan Kulla's user avatar
16 votes
3 answers
6k views

Has the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra been proved using just fixed point theory?

Question: Is there already in the literature a proof of the fundamental theorem of algebra as a consequence of Brouwer's fixed point theorem? N.B. The original post contained superfluous ...
David Bradway's user avatar
16 votes
2 answers
4k views

Is there a "disjoint union" sigma algebra?

I'm looking for a measure-theoretic analogue to the disjoint union topology, or for work on the $\sigma$-algebra generated by canonical injections. More formally: For an indexed family of sets $\{A_i\...
Neil Toronto's user avatar
16 votes
2 answers
2k views

Categorification of probability theory: what does a "probability sheaf" tell us (if anything) about probability theory?

Disclaimer: I only have a superficial knowledge of what category theory and related subjects are concerned with. So, my understanding is that category theory and related fields of higher mathematics ...
dohmatob's user avatar
  • 6,853
16 votes
4 answers
3k views

How many minors I need to check to conclude all minors will vanish ?

Given a $m \times n$ matrix $n>m$, I was trying to check if all its $m \times m$ minor vanish. I remember hearing that one really does not need to check all possible minors in order to conclude ...
Vagabond's user avatar
  • 1,795
15 votes
2 answers
3k views

Covering the space by disjoint unit circles

Andrzej Szulkin [MR0719756] (thanks to Alexey Ustinov for the reference) proved the following two interesting theorems. Theorem 1. The Euclidean plane $\mathbb{R}^2$ is not a union of nondegenerate ...
Boaz Tsaban's user avatar
  • 3,104
15 votes
5 answers
2k views

Zeros of the derivative of Riemann's $\xi$-function

The Riemann xi function $\xi(s)$ is defined as $$ \xi(s)=\frac12 s(s-1)\pi^{-s/2}\Gamma(s/2)\zeta(s). $$ It is an entire function whose zeros are precisely those of $\zeta(s)$. Since $\xi$ is real ...
Stopple's user avatar
  • 11.1k
15 votes
3 answers
1k views

Optimal inspection path on a sphere

Suppose you would like to "inspect" every point of a unit-radius sphere $S \subset \mathbb{R}^3$ by walking along a path $\gamma$ on $S$, but you can only see a distance $d$ from where you ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
15 votes
5 answers
3k views

Generalization of winding number to higher dimensions

Is there a natural geometric generalization of the winding number to higher dimensions? I know it primarily as an important and useful index for closed, plane curves (e.g., the Jordan Curve Theorem), ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
15 votes
6 answers
2k views

Thales' semicircle theorem in higher dimensions

Thales semicircle theorem says that an angle inscribed in a semicircle is a right angle. Q1. Does a cone with apex on a hemisphere and encompassing the circular base have a solid angle ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
15 votes
2 answers
1k views

"Economic" CW-structure for Eilenberg-MacLane spaces?

The only really "economic" cell structures for $K(\pi,n)$'s that I know is the one with a single cell in each dimension for $K(\mathbb Z/n\mathbb Z,1)$ and the one with a single cell in each even ...
მამუკა ჯიბლაძე's user avatar
15 votes
4 answers
3k views

Chevalley–Shephard–Todd theorem

The wikipedia article claims that the theorem "was first proved by G. C. Shephard and J. A. Todd (1954) who gave a case-by-case proof. Claude Chevalley (1955) soon afterwards gave a uniform proof". I ...
Roman Fedorov's user avatar
15 votes
3 answers
4k views

About MF Atiyah and R Bott's 1983 paper

I am a theoretical physics major student working on string theory. I want to understand the work of MF Atiyah and R Bott, "The Yang-Mills equations over riemann surfaces" . What kinds of mathematical ...
Craig Thone's user avatar
15 votes
1 answer
614 views

presentability rank of categories of coalgebras

The following theorem is relatively classical: Theorem: Given an accessible endofunctor, (co)pointed endofunctor or (co)monad $T$ on a locally presentable category $C$, then the category of $T$-(co)...
Simon Henry's user avatar
  • 42.4k
14 votes
5 answers
4k views

References for classical Yang-Mills theory

I am looking for a reference to study classical (i.e., not quantized) Yang-Mills theory. Most of the sources I find focus on mathematical aspects of the theory, like Bleecker's book Gauge theory and ...
José Navarro's user avatar
14 votes
3 answers
2k views

When was the continuum hypothesis born?

The question Solutions to the Continuum Hypothesis states that the continuum hypothesis was posed by Cantor in 1890. In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_hypothesis the year 1878 is quoted ...
user avatar
14 votes
2 answers
2k views

Difficulties with the mod 2 Moore Spectrum

I have been informed that there is a reference out there which specifically details what goes wrong with the mod 2 Moore spectrum, i.e. why it is not $A_\infty$ or something? I do not know the details,...
Jonathan Beardsley's user avatar
14 votes
1 answer
4k views

What is the use of Grothendieck universes in category theory?

First of all, I have to mention that I'm truly sorry if this question would seem inappropriate for this site for some people. Still, I think it is better to ask here rather on math.stackexchange. I ...
Jxt921's user avatar
  • 1,115
14 votes
1 answer
544 views

Are there nice isomorphisms $\operatorname{S}^2(k^n)\cong\Lambda^2(k^{n+1})$?

This might be forced to migrate to math.SE but let me still risk it. The spaces $\operatorname{S}^2(k^n)$ and $\Lambda^2(k^{n+1})$ from the title have equal dimensions. Is there a natural isomorphism ...
მამუკა ჯიბლაძე's user avatar
14 votes
1 answer
1k views

Reverse-engineer forcing: am I reinventing the wheel?

In the course of a project I’m working on, I’ve started playing around with a sort of “reverse-engineering” forcing. It seems interesting, but I have a sinking feeling I’m reinventing the wheel; does ...
Noah Schweber's user avatar
14 votes
7 answers
3k views

Furstenberg $\times 2 \times 3$ conjecture, bibliography

Furstenberg $\times 2 \times 3$ original conjecture states that the unique continuous invariant probability measure for $2x$ mod $1$ and $3x$ mod $1$ is the Lebesgue measure. I wanted to have a ...
14 votes
1 answer
1k views

Uniform proof of dimension formula for minimal special nilpotent orbit?

Given a simple Lie algebra over an algebraically closed field of good characteristic such as $\mathbb{C}$, its subvariety $\mathcal{N}$ of nilpotent elements has dimension $2N$ (where $N$ is the ...
Jim Humphreys's user avatar
14 votes
7 answers
3k views

A special type of generating function for Fibonacci

Notation. Let $[x^n]G(x)$ be the coefficient of $x^n$ in the Taylor series of $G(x)$. Consider the sequence of central binomial coefficients $\binom{2n}n$. Then there two ways to recover them: $$\...
T. Amdeberhan's user avatar
14 votes
8 answers
3k views

Relevant mathematics to the recent coronavirus outbreak

I would like to ask about (old* and new) reliable mathematical literature relevant to various mathematical aspects of the recent coronavirus outbreak: In particular, standard statistical/mathematical ...
13 votes
3 answers
2k views

Consistency of Analysis (second order arithmetic)

Is there a proof of the consistency of Analysis (second order arithmetic), which is similar to Gentzen's proof of the consistency of arithmetic? Update: Which (different) methods can be used to ...
Mohammad Golshani's user avatar

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