Though I'm still not playing any Go these days, I am working again on Basic Corner Shapes via Cho Chikun's life and death dictionary. This one (white to play) is one of my favourites:
Here's a poem by Sylvia Plath to knock the answer off the page and out of sight. (So read the problem before the poem.)
Mushrooms
"Overnight, very Whitely, discreetly, Very quietly
Our toes, our noses Take hold on the loam, Acquire the air.
Nobody sees us, Stops us, betrays us; The small grains make room.
Soft fists insist on Heaving the needles, The leafy bedding,
Even the paving. Our hammers, our rams, Earless and eyeless,
Perfectly voiceless, Widen the crannies, Shoulder through holes. We
Diet on water, On crumbs of shadow, Bland-mannered, asking
Little or nothing. So many of us! So many of us!
We are shelves, we are Tables, we are meek, We are edible,
Nudgers and shovers In spite of ourselves. Our kind multiplies:
We shall by morning Inherit the earth. Our foot's in the door."
This is only one variation. White 1 is the proper first move, but then there are a number of things Black might try (none of which work). I particularly like this sequence though — an elegant little kill.
On Thursday, I went to see the Terracotta Army exhibit at the British Museum. It was stunning. Breathtaking. Incredible.
The exhibit is situated in the reading room, a circular sanctuary in the middle of the museum roofed by an airy dome descending effortlessly into shelves of beautiful old books and haunted by the whispers of the famous literary figures (both real and fictional) who frequented the library. With the exhibit in place, the books are hidden from view, but you can still gaze up into the dome above.
The exhibit is constructed well; it's educational and beautiful but not overwhelming. You wind through the history, learning how the First Emperor conquered the various "warring states", uniting a vast area under the rule of his Qin (pronounced Chin, and from which we get the name "China") dynasty. He learned tricks of trade and warfare from the various people he conquered, using his new-found knowledge to further expand his empire and to effectively rule it once established. He standardized everything: the size and construction of crossbows, to easily replace arrows and triggers; the spacing of wheels on chariots, to match the ruts in the extensive system of roads he had built across the country; weights and measures; "small seal script", doing away with regional differences in the written language; laws and punishments; and coins, declaring his circular coin with a square hole in the middle the only valid currency, doing away with older and often larger coins, some of which were in the shape of knives and arrowheads (quite logically, as knives and arrowheads were objects of value). He organized a huge labor force to extend and connect the various walls built by previous rulers into the initial incarnation of the Great Wall.
And he feared death. He wanted to live and rule forever. With a typical Chinese mix of superstition and practicality, he sought out means of extending his life while simultaneously preparing for his death. The preparations for his death were massive. The construction of over 8,000 of these terracotta warriors, horses, court officials and entertainers required an incredible organization of labor. They were mass produced, but modified by hand so that each was unique. They're so beautiful. If the prospect of spending his afterlife guarded by these exquisite works of art could not soothe his reservations about death, then nothing could.
There's so much more to say, so much more to this incredible story. The layout of the pits (protected by mountains and water, with the army facing the only direction unprotected by natural barriers) and the Emporer's own mausoleum (which remains untouched). The fact that this massive clay army was forgotten by the world for so long, until chance unearthed a warrior in a farmer's well. Every piece inscribed with the names of the laborers and overseers who worked on them, for quality control purposes. The elegant and life-like bronze sculptures of birds (herons and swans) in the musicians' pit. The musicians. The acrobats. The bronze replicas of chariots and drivers. The stone replicas of interlocking leather armor. The mystery and beauty of the whole thing, and of every tiny little detail.
In Chinese class the other night, the word 电脑 (diǎn nǎo = electric brain = computer) came up in a reading again. One of the students in our class is a professor in the computer science department, and he asked our teacher how to say "geek" in Chinese (strenuously denying that this term might be applied to him). She didn't understand at first, so we had to describe the concept of geek to her. When she realized what we meant, she said there was a word for it. In Chinese, as in English, they have the phrase "book worm" (书虫 = shū chóng), so a geek is a 网虫 (wǎng chóng), or "internet worm"—or maybe "web worm" is a better way to say it. Then she gave us the term 黑客, pronounced hēi kè, which is simply a phonetic approximation of "hacker"; it literally means "black guest".
I'm trying to compute the first homology group of upper half space H_3 modulo the action of Γ_0(N) with coefficients in a particular Γ_0(N)-module M. (Here, N is an ideal in the ring of integers of an imaginary quadratic field.) I've been studying Cremona's method, which uses a topological argument and is applied with trivial coefficients. To see the topological argument, he first compactifies the upper half space H_3 by adding points at all the cusps and a point at infinity. This doesn't change the homology, but allows a straightforward tessellation of upper half space, making it easy to see how to compute the homology group.
In my situation, with non-trivial coefficients, I have to compute "homology with local coefficients". There's a nice topological description of this, using a system of local groups, or bundle of groups, which is like a vector bundle, but with groups instead of vector spaces. But with non-trivial coefficients, I can't just attach points at the cusps and compactify that way. It's not good enough. The problem is that we need to be able to identify this covering space (bundle of groups) with H_3* x M modulo the diagonal action of Γ_0(N). But if we take H_3* to be the usual compactification, then (if I understand this correctly) the stabilizers in Γ_0(N) of the cusps may be non-trivial, which means that our resulting covering space will not be identifiable with H_3* x M modulo the diagonal action of Γ_0(N). So instead of adding points at the cusps and infinity, I have to add corners, and these corners will probably each consist of an entire half plane! What will that do to my tessellation?
Last Friday, Peter (who did his PhD in maths (analysis) at King's and is now working in The City), having joined us at the pub, sat down and promptly informed us, much to the dismay of the theoretical physicists present, that "physics is solved." He had found this article and the paper on the arXiv to which it referred. Peter's claim was intended as mockery of the grandiose title of the paper, "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" but of course it's difficult to mock such a title with exaggeration.
I don't know much of anything about physics, but Not Even Wrong explains a bit more of what Lisi did (and did not) do, and gives references to some other commentary as well, leading to this pretty picture.
Perhaps they're being sarcastic. Or maybe the Chinese confused the program. If it could understand what I've written in Chinese, my blog would be at toddler level. Possibly it extrapolates more than it should from the occasional math post. Or do they mean that it takes a genius to decipher my garbled posts?
I had lunch with Guo Juan and her friend Bob this afternoon. They're in London on holiday this week. It's always great to see Guo Juan.
She took us to a restaurant in Chinatown which she says is famous for having good cheap food and awful service. I didn't notice the service being so terrible, but then Guo Juan just ordered for us quickly in Chinese. We didn't even look at the menu. It was certainly good, and unbelievably cheap.
They were supposed to join me for the Royal Opera House lunchtime recital today, but unfortunately it was cancelled. Apparently the singer was ill, which is no surprise given the cold, wet, windy, dark and generally miserable weather we've had lately. Last night my umbrella broke while I was walking home. Fortunately, one can buy an umbrella anywhere in London, including any post office. Of course I haven't bought a new one yet. I just walk around with one side of the umbrella flopping down. I'll have to give in soon though, as the weather is unlikely to change.
Guo Juan asked me if I know Pierre Colmez, who is an excellent number theorist in France. He's also a very good Go player, at French 5 or 6 dan. I certainly know of him, and I've seen him give talks, but I've never actually met him. Go players always ask me if I know him, because he is a mathematician and mathematicians always ask me if I know him, because he is a Go player. I'm afraid I'll have to get much better at both before anyone asks him whether he knows me.
My friend Alicia lives in a residence hall for graduate students which is not associated to any particular university. It's centrally located and relatively affordable, but it is still a residence hall and worse, they expect you to be involved socially with the community living there. She's joined the wine tasting club and salsa dancing lessons, so it's not all bad, but she's also required to invite her supervisor to a meet-each-other's-supervisors dinner. (Her supervisor turned down the invitation, so that's a potentially awkward situation averted.)
Anyway, I've been going to the salsa classes with her on Saturdays. Gabriel (the guy who is teaching the classes) is a friend of Alicia's who is also from Mexico. It's no easy task trying to teach these stiff Brits how to dance, especially because he has to teach them in English instead of Spanish.
I've been going for a few weeks now, but last week was the first week that I felt like we were actually dancing a bit. It was a small group on Saturday, with more guys than girls. This was a welcome change but more importantly the guys who showed up on Saturday were decent and, having a few weeks under our belts, we could finally do a bit more than just stumbling through disjointed sequences of moves, desperately trying to remember the next step. Also, I got to dance with Gabriel more. He's really good and it's so nice to dance with someone who can.
I like my Mexican friends. We spent the rest of the evening drinking beers chelada style and then Mezcal with lime and a crushed salt/chili/worm mixture.
On Thursday this week, we took our dancing public for the first time. It was really fun, but much harder than our lessons, where we have a big room with plenty of space. At the bar it was crowded, with everyone bumping into each other. I kept getting thrown off balance or just distracted. And the music they played there was Cuban and much faster than the Mexican salsa we've been learning. Also, it had been a long day and I was really tired. But I hope we go back soon. Pubs beat bars by a long shot, but it's so nice to get up from the sedentary office/pub life and move.
Translation: My friend Chunyan is Chinese. In October, she went to China to see her parents. Last week she came to London. She gave me Chinese stuff: two books for writing characters (below), Chinese tea, fruit (but this fruit has no water), etc.
I say "etc." because she also gave me this hanging decoration thing, but I don't know what to call it. Also, I know how to say "etc." in Chinese. As for the fruit, she gave me these dried fruit and vegetable chips, hence the parenthetical comment about the fruit having no water. (I don't know how to say that it's dried.) The comment is more fun in Chinese because the word for fruit is 水果 (pronounced shuǐ guǒ), the first character of which is the word for water.
I love these books. They're for kids to practice writing characters. They give a character and the stroke order and a little illustration from which I can sometimes discern the meaning of the word. (Some of them are rather enigmatic. For the character 今, pronounced jīn, which means today or now, there's a picture of an elf next to a calendar marked 12.25.) Then there are a bunch of boxes for you to practice writing the character. Some of them even have the characters written in for you to trace over.
I know many of the words, but certainly not all of them. I don't know if I'll ever be able to learn all the words for different family members. I have a large family, so I thought I could match the words up with my own family members to remember them, but it's not so easy. In my immediate family, I have an older brother (哥哥), a younger brother (弟弟), and younger sisters (妹妹), but no older sisters (姐姐). And those are the easy ones that I already know. My extended family is large too, but as my dad is the youngest of four brothers, I have no one I can call 婶 (my father's younger brother's wife).
Translation: On Thursday evenings, we have Chinese class. Chunyan is our Chinese teacher. This week, I went to class, but the other students didn't go to class. So Chunyan and I read my Chengyu book together. (She read the book, I listened to her.)
"Twitter – the social website that asks users to constantly post what they're doing right now in 140 characters or less – became a key source for decimating emergency information during the southern California wildfires last month."
I hear stories of bonfires on every corner for Guy Fawkes Night, but I've yet to see even one. I'm told they're more common in places other than London. One of my officemates was in his hometown (somewhere farther north) this past weekend, and said he went to an attempted bonfire at his neighbor's house. Apparently they couldn't get their massive heap of (wet) wood lit, even with the aid of loads of paint thinner some other guy happened to have with him in his car.
We did have lots of fireworks last night. Though large and loud, they didn't seem to be part of any official display, which meant that, on my walk home, I was jumping out of my skin every few blocks as deafening cracks and pops would sound from just around the corner in any given direction. Since I never knew where the next one would go off, I didn't actually see very many of them.
(Last night I went to Chinese class. Séverine didn't go, because her brother came to London. My teacher gave me a Cheng Yu (Chinese proverb) kids' book! This book is great. It has a CD.)
She said it's probably for seven or eight year olds. I can read bits, but definitely not all of it. So maybe I'm about five or six in Chinese. Not too bad, right?
It has a little cartoon with each proverb, and I opened the book to one and was excited to understand it, even though I couldn't quite read all the characters. It has a couple of little green cabbages sitting around, talking about how no one is buying white cabbages this winter. In the next panel, someone comes along and buys one of the little green cabbages. Then you see the other green cabbage rolling along and in the final panel, he's hiding among the big white cabbages, saying, "We're all white cabbages here! I'm just shorter than you."
Well, there's a lot that I don't understand. Maybe I'm only four or five years old. This one is easy though. In both of the left hand panels, it says, "Teacher is coming!"
Hugh Carey and Raymond Decker met when HC was 15 and RD was 19. HC was from Edinburgh. He had told his teacher he wanted to apply to Oxford and the teacher had told him to wait, & HC thought—but that’s stupid, if I get in at 15 people will always say He got into Oxford when he was 15. So he wrote independently to Merton to apply to take the exam, & he went down to take the exam. RD was largely self-taught. RD had read Plato’s Gorgias even before he came up, and being the type to take things to heart he had taken it to heart. In the Phaedrus the rhetorician Gorgias is said to boast that he can give a long or short answer to any question, and in the Gorgias he says that when it comes to giving short answers he is unsurpassed. Socrates, on the other hand, knows only one way to answer a question, some questions can be answered with one word and others may take five thousand, and the philosopher, unlike the rhetorician or the politician, will take as long as he needs. This placed RD in a terrible dilemma. He had bought copies of past papers from the University Press & now he paced up and down declaiming to HC: All the interesting questions require a minimum of three hours apiece to answer and the rest are so stupid it is impossible to say anything intelligent about them, how can you make an intelligent reply to a stupid question? And he would tear his hair and say What am I to do? HC was surprised. He had done 13 O-levels because he had heard the most anyone had ever done before was 12, and he had done them at the age of 12 because he had heard when he was 9 that the youngest anyone had ever done more than 5 was 13 & he had instantly decided to beat the record. He said: Well what did you do for A-level? RD: I don’t want to talk about it. HC: Well what about O-level? RD: I don’t want to talk about it. HC: Well surely you must have taken some exam. RD: Of course I’ve taken an exam. It was horrible. Full of questions about long division. I don’t want to talk about it. Long division? said HC. RD: I don’t want to TALK about it. And he paced up and down the common room making further anguished references to the Gorgias crying What am I to do? HC said: Do you play chess? What? said RD. And HC said: Do you play chess? And RD said: Of course. And HC said Let’s play a game. He took out from one pocket a pocket chess set, and from his other pocket he took out a chess clock which he took with him wherever he went. It was the night before the first exam, and he had been planning to go over the chorus to Zeus of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon. He set out the board. RD was white. HC set the timer & he said: 20 minute game. And RD said: I don’t play that way. HC: 10 minutes each. And RD said: But that’s stupid. HC: I don’t have time to play longer. I need to look at the chorus to Zeus. RD: P-K4. HC: P-QB4. RD knew many responses to the Sicilian Defence but the question was what could be developed in the time available, still pondering this question he had not even moved his knight to KB3 when the timer went off, he moved his knight now to KB3 and HC said: Sorry. Game’s over. RD was furious & he started to argue but in the meantime HC had moved all the pieces back and turned the clock back & this time HC was white. HC: P-K4. RD liked the Sicilian Defence himself but debating inwardly the merits in the time allowed of the Najdorf Variation, the Scheveningen (which he generally preferred), the Nimzowitsch & others too numerous to mention he nearly made the same mistake, suddenly pulling himself together (P-QB4) he managed to make 10 moves before falling again into deep thought interrupted only by the timer. He reached his 10th move & the timer went off before he had moved a piece & HC said game’s over and moved the pieces back again and started the clock. By now RD was really furious. HC was only 15 and looked young for his age. RD make his first move and HC made his and this time RD made a move the instant it was his turn and HC won in 25 moves. RD put the pieces back. HC said he had to read the Agamemnon. RD said This won’t take long. He was black. This time he played the defence he knew the best, and he played a version of a middle game he had read in Keres & Kotov, and the end played itself. He said: Checkmate. And he said: I know what you think you’re doing, but it’s stupid. It’s not the same. And HC said: It’s a game. It’s a stupid game. Opening, middle game, endgame, opening, middle game, endgame, opening middle game endgame. Let’s set the clock to 5 minutes. RD said: It’s not the same. HC said: 10 minute game. HC set out the pieces and he started the clock. They played 5 games and RD won 4. RD said: It’s not the same. They played until 2:00 in the morning. RD kept saying It’s not the same, but he was laughing now because he was winning most of the time. You are probably thinking that HC was letting him win but he wasn’t. HC had none of the Socratic scruples that plagued RD, but he carried sportsmanship to so fanatical an extreme that it had a very similar effect; he knew he would have no real competition if RD was not there, & left to his own devices & composing Socratic answers to Gorgianic questions RD was certainly not going to be there. So even though he could hardly keep his eyes open he said to RD: Don’t think of arguments. Look at a question and say: Queen’s Indian. Sicilian Defence. RD thought this was ridiculous but no sooner had he dismissed it as ridiculous than it suddenly seemed to him, as a matter of fact, that you actually could start a discussion of the influence of Homer on Virgil using the Sicilian Defence. Ruy Lopez, said HC, pursuing his advantage. RD: Ruy LOPEZ! How can I POSSIBLY use the Ruy LOPEZ? HC hesitated— RD: If they set the question they are OBVIOUSLY, ALWAYS white. & he was again briefly plunged into despair. HC: Black to win in 4 moves. Two knights & a rook, checkmate in 6. No, said RD, and he stood up and wrapped his arms around his head in a pretzel formation. He paced up and down & at last he said: Yes. NOW I see. He said: You don’t actually ARGUE all the way THROUGH you decide the endgame you want to play you incorporate an opening which might lead to it by REFERENCE as it might be Black played an unusual version of the Queen’s Indian you incorporate the middle game largely by REFERENCE— Whether this really is what you do or not RD did get in under the impression that you did and get a scholarship on the strength of [opening] [middle game] endgame, and he and HC were friends & rivals. HC made him go in for prizes because if he won a prize RD had not gone in for it would not really count, & every time he had to play chess with RD to counterbalance the hold Socrates had regained on his mind in the meantime.
I stopped by the Tate Modern last night to see the earthquake in Turbine Hall. The crack runs the whole length of the cavernous room. Walk up and let your toes dangle over the edge and your imagination dive in. The wound is deeper than it looks and you fall a long time in the blackness. Straddle the chasm and you're in an action movie, with a split second to decide which direction to throw your weight and no way of knowing where the ground will yawn open next. The sound of broken earth and falling rock echoes through your head.
I sauntered back along the less populated, uncracked side of the floor and climbed the wooden stairs to the fifth floor. Picasso's Girl in a Chemise is stunning. This photo does not do it justice. The curve and shadow of her cheek are perfect and the haughty yet sad look in her eye is so real.
Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 17:45:21 +0100 From: pse-pgadmissions@kcl.ac.uk To: rebecca.torrey@kcl.ac.uk Subject: Changes to Visa Extension rules
THE INFORMATION BELOW IS FOR ANY REGISTERED STUDENT AT KING'S WHO MAY NEED TO GET A VISA EXTENSION FROM THE HOME OFFICE BEFORE THEY COMPLETE THEIR PROGRAMME OF STUDY.
On 1 November 2007 the UK's Foreign & Commonwealth Office will introduce the Academic Technology Approval Scheme (ATAS). ATAS will make it compulsory for all non-EEA or Swiss nationals studying postgraduate courses in scientific and technical subjects to apply for security clearance before they apply for entry clearance (a visa) to enter the UK as a student. Students who are already in the UK and need to extend their stay in order to study one of the specified courses will also need to obtain clearance before applying to the Home Office for further leave to remain (a visa extension).
ATAS clearance applications are free are made online. Once clearance has been granted you will receive an ATAS certificate which you need to include with your further leave to remain application.
You can find further information about ATAS and a link to the online application form at www.fco.gov.uk/atas
If you have any queries about your course in relation to ATAS, please contact us. If you have any other queries or require assistance in making your ATAS application please contact the Welfare & Advice Service by emailing welfare@kcl.ac.uk The Welfare & Advice Service is also able to provide advice and information about making an application for entry clearance or extension of stay in the UK.
Yours sincerely
School Office
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Wednesday, October 10, 2007
As I crossed Waterloo bridge this morning on my way to work, I anchored my gaze on the shoes of the woman in front of me. Mental blinders blocking out everything but her feet, I wondered what distracted her so that she plodded onward, oblivious to the bits of rubbish plastered by the wet wind to her shoes. Why does she not turn her feet so that the wind will snatch them away? Or scrape her feet along the pavement to rid herself of this unsightly burden?
As I pulled nearer to pass, my nearsighted eyes saw that these were not scraps of newspaper or newstand food wrappers, but once white bows, thickly tied and pasted off-kilter to her shoes' toes.
There's an excellent article by Henri Darmon which was published in 1999 in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society. The article reports the announcement of the proof of the full Shimura-Taniyama-Weil conjecture, but I post it here because it is an excellent overview of the sort of mathematics I am studying. ("Diamond" in the article is my supervisor, Fred Diamond.) I think it's quite readable, though that may just be because I have been studying these things for years.
My work concerns Serre's conjecture, which isn't mentioned explicitly in the article, but is what he's referring to when he talks about establishing connections between automorphic forms and Galois representations (in the Langlands Program section). Basically, the idea is that the Galois representations also have a sequence of numbers associated to them, and you want to be able to determine precisely for which Galois representations there exists a modular form such that the sequence of numbers Darmon describes for the modular form matches the sequence associated to the given Galois representation.
The proof of Serre's original conjecture is pretty much complete by now. Here's a layman's notice from 2005 on Khare's proof. My thesis will (hopefully) be a formulation of the conjecture (in particular, the so-called "weight part" of the conjecture) over imaginary quadratic fields along the lines of the formulation over totally real fields by my supervisor and two others (at conferences I've heard it referred to as the "BDJ conjecture" and the "Buzzard-Diamond-Jarvis paper" even though it hasn't actually been published yet), and then to also provide some evidence that the conjecture is the correct one.
One of the 成语 we've learned is 四面楚歌, where 四 = sì = four 面 = mìan = side 楚 = chǔ = country/area 歌 = gē = song
There's a story that goes along with it, which I believe Chunyan said comes from some historical occasion. There were these two regions at war and the army of one had fought its way into the region of the other, but had gone too deep too quickly. (I wouldn't be surprised if this is used as a Go proverb.) The invading army was surrounded and their opponents (if I have the story correct -- we were a bit confused about this) started singing a song from the homeland of the invaders to demoralize them.
The expression is used to mean that you're "facing hostility on all sides". I remember it by a misreading of the literal translation: there's country music on all sides.
No, this is not a post about the LLL algorithm, which a few of us might otherwise have been contemplating, or at least taking advantage of, when we instead went to see "Love's Labour's Lost" at the Globe last night.
I don't tend to stray far from my flat-to-office-and-back-again circuit these days, but the Globe is right on the Thames, halfway between work and home. Plus, as we stood in the yard through the whole play, the tickets were cheap.
The slapstick doesn't really do much for me and the plot is flimsy at best, but the banter is fun and the language lovely and the theatre itself a delightful place.
Prin. But what was sent to you from fair Dumaine? Kath. Madam, this glove. Prin. Did he not send you twain? Kath. Yes, madam; and moreover, Some thousand verses of a faithful lover: A huge translation of hypocrisy, Vilely compil’d, profound simplicity. Mar. This, and these pearls to me sent Longaville: The letter is too long by half a mile. Prin. I think no less. Dost thou not wish in heart The chain were longer and the letter short? Mar. Ay, or I would these hands might never part. Prin. We are wise girls to mock our lovers so. Ros. They are worse fools to purchase mocking so. That same Berowne I’ll torture ere I go. O that I knew he were but in by the week! How I would make him fawn, and beg, and seek, And wait the season, and observe the times, And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rimes, And shape his service wholly to my hests, And make him proud to make me proud that jests! So perttaunt-like would I o’ersway his state That he should be my fool, and I his fate. Prin. None are so surely caught, when they are catch’d, As wit turn’d fool: folly, in wisdom hatch’d, Hath wisdom’s warrant and the help of school And wit’s own grace to grace a learned fool. Ros. The blood of youth burns not with such excess As gravity’s revolt to wantonness. Mar. Folly in fools bears not so strong a note As foolery in the wise, when wit doth dote; Since all the power thereof it doth apply To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.
We arrived at the IMAX last night at 10:30 and left this morning at 9:15, one The Lord of the Rings trilogy viewing richer. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to make it all the way through, as they didn't even start until after my usual bedtime, but I can't sleep through a single scene of those movies. I still wish he had done The Hobbit, though it would have meant a few more hours at the theatre last night.
Walking home this morning in the crisp apple sunlight, with my eyes still full of tears and the soft Shire version of the soundtrack theme still floating through my head, I marvelled at how all the people on the street were clearly oblivious to the fact that the world had just been saved in an epic battle from an awful evil.
I usually operate on the assumption that opera is out of my budget, so that I won't go and check to see what's playing only to be depressed by the astronomical prices. Séverine told me the other day that the Royal Opera House has student discounts, so I decided to peruse their website.
To my great delight, I discovered that they've just started a series of free lunchtime concerts every Monday. As the Royal Opera House is just around the corner from my office, I plan to attend regularly. It appears that the tickets for the first one (this coming Monday) are all booked, but I've already reserved a spot for the following week.
At Brandeis, the Lydian String Quartet used to give free lunchtime concerts a few times each semester and I would go whenever I could. It's such a lovely and refreshing break in the day to take an hour and listen to live chamber music.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
"Why is she in London?" the familiar British voice demands, testing my comprehension of the preceding passage in Chinese.
The Chinese CDs play in the background while I work. The same dialogues repeat daily, slowly burning into my memory. Like with music, I listen again and again, memorizing the lyrics without initially understanding the meaning. I sometimes catch myself murmuring the phrases along with the CD. Occasionally it catches my attention on a more concious level and I'll understand what they're saying or look it up if I don't. The few words in English have a tendency to stand out, and the question "Why is she in London?" almost always gives me pause. 'Why is she in London?' I wonder, having missed, once again, the explanatory passage that came before.
The other day I booked a table for tonight (I hope... I made the reservation online and have not had any response from them yet) for dinner with a few friends at an Ethiopian restaurant. I wouldn't normally worry too much about reservations at an Ethiopian restaurant. It's one of my favourite cuisines in the world, but I guess others aren't as enthusiastic because the restaurants tend not to be too crowded.
My complacency got a bit ruffled this morning when I heard on the BBC news that Ethiopia is just now (as in today) celebrating the new millenium. Apparently sometime during the sixth century, the birth of Christ was pushed back a few years for everyone (at least for those who noticed and cared) except the Ethiopians. Now thrifty Ethiopians can break out the "2000" shaped glasses they've been hoarding for the past seven years and celebrate in style.
Amy Goodman had Sunni Patterson and Truth Universal on Democracy Now! the other day.
So we know this place, for we have glanced more times than we'd like to share into eyes that stare with nothing there behind them but an unfulfilled wish and an unconscious yearning for life though death rests comfortably beside us. At night their moans are louder. They come to visit the guards at the gate, and they stay until morning torturing their guilt-ridden insides. The silent cries of the keepers are louder than the booms that come from the guns they use to occupy the space. And we know this place, for we have seen more times than we'd like to imagine bloated cadavers floating through waters of a city gone savage, foraging the land for what can be salvaged. But what can be saved when all is lost? It happened in August, twenty-nine days in. We are now five days out of the only place we knew to call house and home. Few things are certain: one, we have no food; two, there are more bodies lying at the roadside than hot plates being distributed or first aid being administered or recognition as a citizen. Fourteenth Amendment, X, refugee, check.
And we know this place. It's ever-changing yet forever the same: Money and power and greed, the game. They suck and devour the souls of the slain. What a feast for the beast at their table of shame with napkins around necks that catch the blood that drains from the flesh they chew, it's hailed again.
And we know this place, all too well, dank with the smell of death and doom. It hovers, it smothers, no growth, no room, no pretty, no please, just grey, just gloom, just burned me of hope, and it died too soon, just juckin’, just jiving, just living, we just fools.
And we know this place. It’s decked in all its array and splendor, golden streets with good intentions capture our attention, gadgets and inventions pesticide the food supply, flu-like symptoms, diabetic condition, a cancer in the system, held on hold, it’s a pistol to the temple. Go run to the churches, tell reverend it’s simple. Good works and good deeds is what equals redemption, but tell me, please, Jesus never mentioned, how do churchmen get extensions on freedom, while children are being fondled from the altar to the streets, then back to the sanctuaries? It's kind of scary, ain’t it? to know that both the prophet and the priest practice deceit, then come to the people and claim peace, peace, come to the people and claim love, love. But where is the peace, huh? Where is the love? Where that balm in Gilead that can heal the wounded soul or make the half-man whole?
I swear, we know this place, because we have vowed before never again to return, but here we are, back in the desert, dry mouth and thirsting for waters from Heaven. But come, come, children, rally around, and maybe together we can make a sound that will shake the trees or rattle the ground, make strong our knees, we's freedom bound.
And we know this place. Reclaim the crown. Hold onto the prize, never put it down. Be firm in the stance, no break, no bow, got to forward on, Mama, make your move now. Forward on, Papa, make your move now. Forward, dear children, ’cuz freedom is now.
I brought almost no books with me to London, attempting to keep the weight of my luggage to a minimum. While here, I've bought very few books, due to constraints in budget and the heavy thought of carrying or mailing them back home next year. I have been making extensive use of my local library here, which has its own delights, and I've been keeping a list at goodreads.com to remember what I've read.
But I really miss having my favourite books around me. I miss favourite passages and poems that I look up and reread regularly. I miss friends' inscriptions in books that were gifts. Whenever (in spite of the risk to my bank account) I stop by a bookstore and catch sight of the uniform row of the Patrick O'Brian series, I reach out and caress the spines longingly. But the books I visit in bookstores are not mine. They don't open at the right places. They have the wrong covers (or it's wrong that they have a cover at all). They weren't devoured and absorbed and broken and stained by me and the people I've chosen to share them with.
My books are stuffed in boxes in my parents' attic, waiting for me to return and dust them off and restore them to their places of honour.
Yesterday I went with Alicia and some other friends of hers to the "Blind Light" exhibit at the Hayward Gallery. The installation for which the exhibit is named is a rectangular, brightly lit room of fog. Standing in the queue snaking around the perimeter, we watched people inside suddenly appear against the glass and then fade back into the fog. Some would smash against the glass with a loud thwack like birds flying into big windows. Others would tentatively grope for the wall with trembling hands.
Before we went in, I couldn't understand why everyone felt the need to actually touch the glass. Once you're close enough to discern the seams between the panels, and see outside, why would you need to actually press up against the glass as everyone inside seemed to be doing?
Once inside, though, it becomes clear. You can't see at all. The fog is so thick, you can't see your own feet, or even much of your legs. Looking up into the bright white fog, you could very well be outside instead of inside; there's no way to tell. Sometimes shadows would loom up in front of you, giving you a brief warning that there's someone else there, but often you'd just run right into other people. If you weren't walking too quickly, you'd have some notice that you were approaching the glass wall because the fog would get a bit darker. But it was still extremely difficult to discern the distance to the glass. You'd reach for it, and even with your fingers just an inch or two from the glass, you couldn't be sure if it was right there or another foot away. Also, it was hard to tell if you were coming at the glass perpendicularly, or from some other angle, making the glass slope towards or away from you. We were delighted, but some people were clearly disturbed and tried to head straight back out as soon as they got in, though this wasn't necessarily easy.
Installations like this and the slides at the Tate Modern indicate that contemporary artists are appropriating the role of amusement parks. I don't intend that as a criticism. I think their aims have never been particularly dissimilar, and these interactive exhibits are fun. In "Skyblaster Man", Peter Mayer sings "To be convinced you’re alive/It’s a mighty big job for a three minute ride/So he brings his powers to bear/As if he’s in prayer/While they’re in the air". As it was the last day of the exhibit and a Sunday afternoon, we had the queues of an amusement park to add to the impression.
There's a great fountain just outside the Hayward Gallery, with walls of water that subside long enough for you to jump inside the little square rooms. We were already damp from the exhibit inside, and the weather outside wasn't all that different from the interior of Antony Gormley's fog room, so we scooted inside the fountain, leaving us quite a bit wetter and colder than we had been.
We warmed up at a gaudy tex-mex restaurant. So I spent the evening giggling with the girls over tequila. The waiter provided us with cowboy hats, making us look like a hen party instead of a bunch of mathematicians and computer scientists.
olive oil 1 small red bell pepper, chopped 1/2 small orange or yellow bell pepper, chopped 2 garlic cloves, crushed 1/4 cup mayonaise 1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper 1 9 oz can artichoke hearts, drained 1 pizza crust 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese 1/2 cup grated parmesan 1/2 tsp. dried thyme
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Heat oil in a skillet. Add bell peppers. Saute for 3 minutes. Add half the garlic, saute until peppers are tender, then set aside. Combine remaining garlic, mayonaise, crushed red pepper, black pepper, and artichoke hearts in a food processor (or blender, or just mash). Process until finely chopped. Place pizza crust on baking sheet, top with artichoke heart mixture, then bell pepper mixture. Sprinkle with cheeses and thyme. Bake at 450 for 10-15 minutes.
Leek, Mushroom, and Lemon Risotto
8 oz trimmed leeks 2-3 cups crimini mushrooms 2 Tbsp. olive oil 3 garlic cloves, crushed 6 Tbsp. butter 1 large onion, roughly chopped 1 3/4 cups risotto rice 5 cups simmering vegetable stock grated zest of 1 lemon 3 Tbsp. of lemon juice 2/3 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese 1/4 cup mixed chopped fresh chives and parsley salt and freshly ground black pepper lemon wedges, to serve
Wash the leeks well. Slice them in half lengthwise and chop them roughly. Wipe the mushrooms with paper towels and chop them roughly.
Heat the oil in a large saucepan and cook the garlic for 1 minute. Add the leeks, mushrooms, and plenty of seasoning and cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, or until softened and browned. Remove from the pan and set aside.
Add 2 Tbsp. of the butter to the pan. As soon as it has melted, add the onion and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes, until softened and golden.
Stir in the rice and cook for about 1 minute, until the grains begin to look translucent and are coated in the fat. Add a ladleful of the stock to the pan and cook gently, stirring occasionally, until the liquid has been absorbed.
Continue to add stock, a ladleful at a time, until all the stock has been absorbed. This should take 25-30 minutes. The risotto will turn thick and creamy and the rice should be tender but not sticky.
Just before serving, stir in the leeks, mushrooms, remaining butter, grated lemon zest and juice. Add half the grated parmesan and herbs. Adjust the seasoning and sprinkle with the remaining parmesan and herbs. Garnish with parsley, if you like, and serve with lemon wedges.
Marbled Cheesecake Squares
2 cups plus 1 Tbsp all-purpose flour 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, slightly softened 16 oz. (2 pkgs) cream cheese AT ROOM TEMP 3/4 cup granulated sugar 3 large eggs 1 tsp vanilla extract 3 Tbsp whipping cream 4 oz. semisweet chocolate, melted (melt later)
opt.: raspberry jam, for swirling
Heat oven to 350 degrees f.
Combine 2 cups flour and brown sugar in mixing bowl. Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly. Spread and pat firmly onto bottom of an ungreased 9x13 pan. Bake until lightly browned, about 15 mins. Place pan on a rack to cool and lower oven temp to 325. Combine cream cheese and sugar in a mixing bowl. Beat until fluffy and smooth. Add eggs one at a time. Stir in remaining tablespoon of flour along with the vanilla and whipping cream. Pour batter evenly onto baked crust. Spoon melted chocolate over topping. Using a table knife, swirl the chocolate (and, optionally, raspberry jam) through the cheese topping until marbled throughout. Return to oven and bake until center is set, about 35 mins. Place pan on a rack to cool; cut into 2-inch squares. Serve slightly warm, at room temp or chilled.
Makes about 24 squares. Store covered in the pan for one day at room temp or in refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Here are Chunyan's suggestions for making the soup, which I believe can be served warm or cold. We used to have the green one as a drink accompanying breakfast sometimes in China. The green version is supposed to cool your body down, while the red one warms you up.
Red Bean Soup
red beans (2-3 handfuls) dried lotus nuts (about 10) dried dates (about 10-15) XI MI (西米 - tapioca) (0.5 - 1 handful) 1/3 of 1 stick of Chinese brown sugar
1. wash red beans, dates and lotus nuts, sink in the water for 2 hours; 2. boil the water, put the red beans into the pot; 3. after boiling, put the XI MI and lotus nuts in; 4. after boiling put dates in; 5. after boiling, cook on low for 2 hours (until the red beans look open like flower), put the sugar in, then cook on high for half hour (may add some water during this period, and you may half open the lid)
Visitor #5 is in town. Jess J. has been telling me about her time living in Korea. She taught English there and so she's here now visiting with her fellow English teachers from England and Ireland. Somehow she managed to live in Korea for four years without learning Baduk (or, for that matter, Korean). She did say that some of her students would go to Baduk classes after school.
Chunyan took Alicia and I out for dim sum this afternoon ("Chinese afternoon tea", she called it). 很好吃 - It was delicious. The waiter came by at one point and asked, "好吃吗?" ("Is it ok?"). Chunyan responded and, after he left, asked me if I understood. I told her that I had, but it takes me a minute; I don't realize that I understand in time to respond. She told us that the first time she had met a foreigner in China, they were on a bus and he saw some pine trees outside, so he pointed and said, "Christmas!". She said it wasn't until she got home that evening that she realized what he had said: "Oh! Christmas!"
We stopped by at one of the Chinese grocery stores on the way back so she could show me what to buy to make red bean or green mung bean soup. I bought all the ingredients, and she was trying to describe how to make it, but, even though it sounds simple, I'm a bit dubious. She says throw in a handful of this and a bit of that, but I complained that her hands are a lot smaller than mine. She says that all Chinese recipes are like this. "It's not like in Germany," she told me.
I might go out with Alicia and some of her other Mexican friends for tacos and dancing on Thursday. We'll see. I will definitely go with them on Sunday to the Blind Light exhibition. And on Saturday evening, I'm having Brenda and Alicia over for dinner. I haven't cooked in ages, so that'll be interesting.
It looks like I finally got my program to work for Gamma_1(N). Of course, there's still so much to do. I need to:
implement characters other than the trivial one
modify it to work over \bar{\FF_{\ell}} instead of \CC
finish implementing support for Gamma_1(N) intersect Gamma(p)
maybe someday make it work for imaginary quadratic fields other than \QQ(i)
That's just for my code. Then I need to go back to actually formulating this conjecture and I also need to come up with Galois representations corresponding to the modular forms I will hopefully find.
They've hung (reproductions of) a bunch of major works around the streets of Soho, which, conveniently, is right by my office.
Of course, one can and should just go see the real paintings in the National Gallery, but I think art on the street is a good thing.
Also, I don't know that it's intended as such, but I think it's a fun answer to Banksy -- he hangs his work in major museums, so they put their paintings on the street.
Last week I received a package which I probably should have gotten the previous week, except that no one had been home to sign for it. The package was returned to one of the Royal Mail's parcel depots and a notice was despatched to me, informing me of what happened and what I needed to do to get my package.
The notice said I could call or use the postal service website to arrange delivery. Opting for the latter, but not realizing that the website they gave me was not quite the one I needed, I ended up just emailing them and explaining what I wanted. In reply, I got an automated email which included the link I needed to set up the delivery. I did this and was able to collect my package from my local post office for a nominal fee in just a few days.
I had no complaint with this process, but the day after I picked up my package, I found the following email in my inbox:
Dear Becci,
Thank you for using our website.
Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to your email, and also for any inconvenience that may have been caused on this occasion.
I have checked our tracking information, and it states that your parcel was delivered too Borough Post Office,
The parcel was delivered on 24/07/07 at 13.41 and was signed for by Mrs Su.
If you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us again using one of the methods below:
E-mail us at: parcelforce@parcelforce.co.uk If sent to any other email address a reply will not be received.
Telephone: 08708 50 11 50 Text phone: 08000 85 58 54 (for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing) Fax: 01924 294 205
Kind Regards
Debbie Sproston Internet Advisor.
I couldn't believe it.
Last night, I received another package. I guess this one didn't require a signature, so when no one was home at our flat, they left it with one of our neighbors and a note at our place saying that we should go pick it up there. Again, I was dumbfounded.
Last night I made Kara's Grandma's Apricot Cookies, one of my favourite recipes:
1 c. butter 8 oz pkg neufchatel 2 3/4 c. flour 1/2 c. sugar apricot preserves powdered sugar
Mix butter and neufchatel. Add flour and sugar, mix. Form into 8 balls, flatten slightly. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Roll into circles (roll in powdered sugar). Cut in 1/8ths. Place small amount of apricot on each piece. Roll up like a croissant. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes.
My friend Chunyan (春燕, which, if I remember correctly, means "Spring Swallow") has recently started a Chinese class. Séverine and I are both taking it, along with Chunyan's supervisor (she's in Computer Science) and a few other people she knows through her department.
I attended for the first time on Thursday evening, having missed the first session the previous week because I was in Paris. Chunyan's supervisor is a total beginner, but everyone else in the class probably knows even more Mandarin than Séverine and I do.
Chunyan is trying to do some different things from the usual basic dialogues so that the rest of us can learn something without leaving her supervisor in the dust. One of the things she's doing is Chengyu (成语), or Chinese proverbs. Each is typically four characters long. Our first one is 拔苗助长, pronounced "bá miáo zhù zhǎng". Translated literally, it means "pull up baby plant help grow up", as in attempting to get your plants to grow faster by pulling them up a tiny bit out of the ground so they look bigger. The moral we were given in English is "too much zeal spoils all".
The fourth in my queue of visitors has just left. Robert was my first (and only?) Go player to visit, so I've been playing some Go for the first time in six months. The last time I saw him he wasn't a Go player and, though I meet new friends through Go, it's something else entirely to have an old friend who can suddenly play with me. Mostly we spent our time playing in pubs or cafes and avoiding eating, which in England can be hazardous. There's a New Yorker article about the British chef Gordon Ramsey with an excellent description of the irony of English cuisine:
...how, for two centuries, has a country with so many resources—creams and butters and handmade cheeses, a practice of grass-feeding sheep and cattle, wild fish, abundant game—produced such a spectacularly loathsome fare? “Try harder than ever for quality,” Elizabeth David wrote in the 1977 edition of “French Provincial Cooking.” “A little fine olive oil, or true, clear stock, or double cream from Jersey herds, or a few fresh eggs laid by decently-fed, humanely-reared hens.” The simple good ingredients were there: why weren’t people using them? Why did they seek out the substandard, the industrial, and the unhealthy: prawn cocktail crisps, say, or fish fingers with Birds Eye peas (a “traditional” Sunday supper), or a “spag bol,” that horrific canned imitation of a classic Bolognese pasta? The implicit complaint—that the English don’t care what they put in their mouths—was evident in how it got there: by scooping up most of what was on your plate and eating it in one bite. Using your knife, you crushed what you could onto the back of your fork, one item after the other, your starches (like that perennial favorite chips and mash), your green-gray veg, a modest protein, calculatedly overcooked, unless it was fish, in which case it was just outright obliterated, and then—bang!—into the mouth, fork upside down. “I really don’t know what English food is,” Ramsay told me. “Spotted dick? Toad-in-the-hole? Curry is the national dish, and people still fry Mars bars for dinner.”
We spent a few days in Paris (where eating is safe), staying with my friend Aftab from Brandeis. When we got there, we immediately regretted not bringing the Go ban. Without really believing it, I suggested that we might be able to find a shop with Go equipment, as I had a vague memory of seeing something promising the last time I was in Paris. So we wandered around the neighborhood I had stayed in before, near the Sorbonne where we were to meet up with Aftab later anyway. After poking our heads into just a couple of the inexplicably large number of stores devoted exclusively to selling figurines of comic book characters, we figured we must be close. Turning down a small side street, we finally happened upon a shop with chess boards in the window. Their Go related stock was impressive with three shelves of books, including the latest books in English, and a fairly large selection of equipment. Like kids in a candy store we exclaimed and grabbed and darted about. Settling on a mat for a board and some glass stones, we thanked the shopkeeper profusely and headed for a cafe.
Yesterday I went into work a bit late so I could watch the Tour de France ride by where it crossed my route. Where I went to see them was pretty quiet, with only a few spectators, so it seemed pretty subdued. Also, it was before the official start of Stage 1; they were just cycling through central London to some ceremony at Tower Bridge and then racing for real out to Canterbury. It was fun to see them though, and think about all the work and preparation they put into this event which is now upon them.
The cyclists, even though not yet racing, were all past in about 30 seconds. Following them was an endless parade of official vehicles, many of which were sprouting bicycle forests from their roofs.
Ever since I heard that the Tour de France would start in London this year, I had been entertaining this delightful (though not so realistic) image of all the cyclists in their sponsor splattered spandex cycling through London, folding up their Bromptons and hopping on the Eurostar to Paris. Of course, it doesn't work that way and they don't ride Bromptons, at least not in the Tour.
Meanwhile, in Paris they're implementing something a bit like Grandma's bicycle plan for New York.
With the Wimbledon finals also in London this weekend, it was quite a lot of sport for the city. It was unusual also because normally if it's not football (i.e. soccer), rugby or cricket, no one here seems to care.
If I were a Springer-Verlag Graduate Text in Mathematics, I would be Joe Harris's Algebraic Geometry: A First Course.
I am intended to introduce students to algebraic geometry; to give them a sense of the basic objects considered, the questions asked about them, and the sort of answers one can expect to obtain. I thus emphasize the classical roots of the subject. For readers interested in simply seeing what the subject is about, I avoid the more technical details better treated with the most recent methods. For readers interested in pursuing the subject further, I will provide a basis for understanding the developments of the last half century, which have put the subject on a radically new footing. Based on lectures given at Brown and Harvard Universities, I retain the informal style of the lectures and stresses examples throughout; the theory is developed as needed. My first part is concerned with introducing basic varieties and constructions; I describe, for example, affine and projective varieties, regular and rational maps, and particular classes of varieties such as determinantal varieties and algebraic groups. My second part discusses attributes of varieties, including dimension, smoothness, tangent spaces and cones, degree, and parameter and moduli spaces.
Last night I left my office around 8 pm and was heading home, weaving my way through gawking tourists. Someone ahead, blocking my way to the street crossing, called out to me. I looked up, expecting to provide directions to some landmark or other, but there in front of me stood Baskar and Stefan! Seven and a half million people in this massive sprawling city, and I run into two people I know. I didn't even know they were in London -- they're only here briefly, stopping on their way from Montreal to Coventry or Israel via France and India.
So, naturally (this being England), I turned around and we went to a pub.
As of this weekend (July 1), London goes smokefree! The new smoking ban applies to pretty much all enclosed public spaces and work places. I can't wait. Of course, it probably just means that I have to deal with more smokers outside.
Our local (which is a chain pub) has boasted a non-smoking section for longer than I've been here. It consists of precisely one table. And that table comes equipped with an ashtray.
Having a flatmate who is also learning Chinese is great. (Séverine 也学中文.) Anything that we know how to say in Chinese, we do, and waking up in the morning and saying "早上好!" reminds me of being in China.
I think I'm as bad as Robin though. This morning, Séverine asked me (in English) what time it was. I coughed pointedly. "Um... um..." she stalled. "现在几点?" she asked. "十一点零五分," (11:05) I replied.
Yesterday I went to the Chinese bookstore (昨天我去中文书店). I bought "The Little Prince" (我买 "小王子"). It's in both English and Chinese. I was excited because I could read the title (and because I love the book). Trying to actually read the text in Chinese is more difficult. It reads more or less like "I something something something. You something something something. I want something something something." I guess I'm not quite ready for it, but they didn't have the baby books I was looking for.
The outrage! The humiliation! We're only the secondmost expensive city in the world! Beat out by Moscow!
At least we still top Tokyo.
When my first visitors were here, we were walking around one evening and happened to pass a real estate agency. Glancing through the advertised prices, Barbara said, "Oh, that's not so bad... You'd pay more in New York." I was dubious, so I looked closer: "Barbara, those prices are per week."
I've moved into my new flat, just down the block from my old place. I'm slowly settling in. There's still much to be done, but work comes first. My third visitors (friends Amy & Tom) arrive tonight. They're only here briefly, on their way to Spain. I'm happy to be able to offer them a place to stay, now that I have more than a dorm room.
I'm back in London now, and very much jetlagged. I slept for 12 hours last night, but I've been really dizzy all morning.
My weekend in Banff after the workshop was very nice. On Saturday, I followed the example of two other workshop participants who were staying around a bit longer, and joined the Grand Nature hiking club on a trip to Castle Lookout. The scheduled trip was for Lake Louise, but the organizer said that there were avalanche warnings. There are a few photos from our trip on the Grand Nature club website.
On Sunday, my shuttle to the airport didn't depart until 5:30 p.m., so I had some time to get in one last hike before I left. In spite of the fact that a gondola carries loads of tourists to the top, I hiked up Sulphur Mountain. It was a really nice hike and would have been perfect if it weren't for the crowds at the peak. There were nice views all the way up, but when you get to the top, the view of the other side is really spectacular. I've put photos up here.
I've stolen a couple of pictures from Ken Ribet. Here I am with (left to right) Armand Brumer, Karen Taylor and Ken Ribet:
This morning I hiked Tunnel Mountain once again after breakfast. I would go before breakfast, but the meals are so large and close together, that I like to separate them as much as possible.
While hurrying back down the mountain to make it in time for the first talk, I came to a sudden halt. There were about six elk on the path.
I snapped some photos and waited for them to meander away a bit before walking past. I just barely got to the talk in time.
This is Bjorn Poonen from U.C. Berkeley. The photo is here for Kate's sake: some of the speakers do use slightly more technologically advanced equipment. Most just use the blackboard. A few do, in fact, use the old school projector.
Yesterday I hiked up Tunnel Mountain twice. In the morning I went solo after breakfast (as I will do again today) and in the afternoon I went with a few other mathematicians, since we had the afternoon off. I didn't bother to bring my camera in the afternoon, but it turns out that I should have. In the afternoon the skies were clear and there were whole new views that I hadn't seen before. These photos are from my misty morning climb.
Today is the last day of the workshop, which ends with lunch. Then I have to move my stuff over to a hostel in town, so I'm not sure what my internet access will be like for the weekend. I'm here until Sunday. I'm hoping to get in a more significant hike Saturday morning and then find a cafe in which to work Saturday afternoon. Hopefully I can get in a minor hike Sunday morning before leaving as well.
I think having workshops like this, where everyone is forced to spend time together, is a really good idea. Mathematicians in particular are notoriously reticent, but when, day after day, meal after meal, you're forced to sit next to each other, you eventually get to know each other a bit. It makes a huge difference. Last night, in the lounge, a lot of people were around, socializing, of all things! Some people were playing bridge, some were half watching a basketball game and many were having a beer and chatting, only occasionally about mathematics.
Lay down these words Before your mind like rocks. placed solid, by hands In choice of place, set Before the body of the mind in space and time: Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall riprap of things: Cobble of milky way. straying planets, These poems, people, lost ponies with Dragging saddles – and rocky sure-foot trails. The worlds like an endless four-dimensional Game of Go. ants and pebbles In the thin loam, each rock a word a creek-washed stone Granite: ingrained with torment of fire and weight Crystal and sediment linked hot all change, in thoughts, As well as things.
