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Why polynomials with coefficients $0,1$ like to have only factors with $0,1$ coefficients?

Conjecture. Let $P(x),Q(x) \in \mathbb{R}[x]$ be two monic polynomials with non-negative coefficients. If $R(x)=P(x)Q(x)$ is $0,1$ polynomial (coefficients only from $\{0,1\}$), then $P(x)$ and $Q(x)$ ...
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Why “open immersion” rather than “open embedding”?

When topologists speak of an "immersion", they are quite deliberately describing something that is not necessarily an "embedding." But I cannot think of any use of the word "embedding" in algebraic ...
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On the first sequence without triple in arithmetic progression

In this Numberphile video (from 3:36 to 7:41), Neil Sloane explains an amazing sequence: It is the lexicographically first among the sequences of positive integers without triple in arithmetic ...
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Uniformization over finite fields?

The following is a question I've been asking people on and off for a few years, mostly out of idle curiosity, though I think it's pretty interesting. Since I've made more or less no progress, I ...
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Set-theoretic reformulation of the invariant subspace problem

The invariant subspace problem (ISP) for Hilbert spaces asks whether every bounded linear operator $A$ on $l^2$ (with complex scalars) must have a closed invariant subspace other than $\{0\}$ and $l^2$...
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Does every triangle-free graph with maximum degree at most 6 have a 5-colouring?

A very specific case of Reed's Conjecture Reed's $\omega$,$\Delta$, $\chi$ conjecture proposes that every graph has $\chi \leq \lceil \tfrac 12(\Delta+1+\omega)\rceil$. Here $\chi$ is the chromatic ...
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What is the current understanding regarding complex structures on the 6-sphere?

In October 2016, Atiyah famously posted a preprint to the arXiv, "The Non-Existent Complex 6-Sphere" containing a very brief proof $S^6$ admits no complex structure, which I immediately read and ...
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Grothendieck's Period Conjecture and the missing p-adic Hodge Theories

Singular cohomology and algebraic de Rham cohomology are both functors from the category of smooth projective algebraic varieties over $\mathbb Q$ to $\mathbb Q$-vectors spaces. They come with the ...
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Enriched Categories: Ideals/Submodules and algebraic geometry

While working through Atiyah/MacDonald for my final exams I realized the following: The category(poset) of ideals $I(A)$ of a commutative ring A is a closed symmetric monoidal category if endowed ...
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How many algebraic closures can a field have?

Assuming the axiom of choice given a field $F$, there is an algebraic extension $\overline F$ of $F$ which is algebraically closed. Moreover, if $K$ is a different algebraic extension of $F$ which is ...
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What is the “real” meaning of the $\hat A$ class (or the Todd class)?

In the Atiyah-Singer index theorem as well as in the Grothendieck-Riemann-Roch theorem, one encounters either the $\hat A$-class or the Todd class, depending on the context. I want to focus on the ...
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What does the theta divisor of a number field know about its arithmetic?

This question is about a remark made by van der Geer and Schoof in their beautiful article "Effectivity of Arakelov divisors and the theta divisor of a number field" (from '98) (link). Let me first ...
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A three-line proof of global class field theory?

There is an idea (I think originally due to Tate) that class field theory is fundamentally a consequence of Pontrjagin duality and Hilbert Theorem 90. I'm curious whether this can phrased using modern ...
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Extending a line-arrangement so that the bounded components of its complement are triangles

Given a finite collection of lines $L_1,\dots,L_m$ in ${\bf{R}}^2$, let $R_1,\dots,R_n$ be the connected components of ${\bf{R}}^2 \setminus (L_1 \cup \dots \cup L_m)$, and say that {$L_1,\dots,L_m$} ...
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What are the potential applications of perfectoid spaces to homotopy theory?

This year's Arizona Winter School was on perfectoid spaces, and there were quite a few homotopy theorists in the audience. I'd like to get a "big list" of reasons homotopy theorists might care about ...
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Minimal volume of 4-manifolds

This question came up in a talk of Dieter Kotschick yesterday. The minimal volume of a manifold is the infimum of volumes of Riemannian metrics on the manifold with sectional curvatures bounded in ...
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Computer calculations in A_infinity categories?

Is there a good computer program for doing calculations in A-infinity categories? Explicit calculations in A-infinity categories are an important, useful, yet very tedious task. One has to keep track ...
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Mikhalkin's tropical schemes versus Durov's tropical schemes

In Mikhalkin's unfinished draft book on tropical geometry, (available here) (page 26) he defines a notion of tropical schemes. It seems to me that this definition is not just a wholesale adaptation of ...
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What is the three-dimensional hyperbolic volume of a four-manifold?

Every smooth closed orientable 4-manifold may be constructed via a handle decomposition. Before asking a couple of questions, I recall some well-known facts about handle-decompositions of 4-manifolds. ...
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Functor that maps to both $KO^n$ and $KO^{-n}$

(my question is also meaningful for complex K-theory, but since Kn(X) is always isomorphic to K-n(X), it's less interesting) I start by recalling the analytic definition of KO-theory: The following ...
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Is there a notion of polynomial ring in “one half variable”?

Let $C$ be the category of commutative rings. Is there a functor $F :C \to C$ such that $F(F(R)) \cong R[X]$ for every commutative ring $R$ ? (Here, we may assume those isomorphisms to be natural ...
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What's an example of an $\infty$-topos not equivalent to sheaves on a Grothendieck site?

My question is as in the title: Does anyone have an example (supposing one exists) of an $\infty$-topos which is known not to be equivalent to sheaves on a Grothendieck site. An $\infty$-topos is as ...
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Are we better in computing integrals than mathematicians of 19th century?

When I started to learn mathematics, I was fascinating by legendary «Демидович»: problems in mathematical analysis. Fifteen years later, when I open chapters about integrals, I see a long list of ...
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Why are there so few quaternionic representations of simple groups?

Having spent many hours looking through the Atlas of Finite Simple Groups while in Grad school, I recall being rather intrigued by the fact that among the sporadic groups, only one (McLaughlin as I ...
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Is there a rigid analytic geometry proof of the functional equation for the Riemann zeta function?

The adèles $\mathbb A$ arise naturally when considering the Berkovich space $\mathcal M(\mathbb Z)$ of the integers. Namely, they are the stalk $\mathbb A = (j_\ast j^{-1} \mathcal O_\mathbb Z)_p$ ...
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Converse of the Archimedean property of the sphere

In his remarkable book On the Sphere and Cylinder, where he came tantalizingly close to discovering calculus, Archimedes showed that the area of the portion of the sphere contained between a pair of ...

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