Author Archives: Peter Cameron

About Peter Cameron

I count all the things that need to be counted.

Ischia group theory conference 2024

Posted on 15/04/2024 by Peter Cameron

The island of Ischia, about a 45-minute hydrofoil ride from Napoli, is rich in history. The museum has a Homeric drinking cup with an inscription in ancient Greek from the 8th century BCE. At the other end of history, the … Continue reading →

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West Virginia University

Posted on 03/04/2024 by Peter Cameron

Anthony Hilton, my former colleague at Queen Mary, spent some time as an Eberly Professor at West Virginia University. Now he has passed on to me the news that the University has decided to close down Pure Mathematics research and … Continue reading →

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Cauchy numbers: job done

Posted on 18/02/2024 by Peter Cameron

After recruiting Scott Harper to the team, we have finished the job of determining all the Cauchy numbers (these are the positive integers n for which there exists a finite list F of finite groups so that a finite group … Continue reading →

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Anatoly Vershik

Posted on 16/02/2024 by Peter Cameron

Anatoly Vershik died the day before yesterday. As I have told here, he was the person who told me about the Urysohn space. I had given a talk at the ECM in Barcelona on the countable random graph, and after … Continue reading →

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Richard Parker

Posted on 10/02/2024 by Peter Cameron

Richard Parker died last month. Now only two of the authors of the ATLAS of finite groups remain, the two Robs. I knew Richard, but perhaps not well enough to write anything appropriate as a tribute. But I recommend you … Continue reading →

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More on Cauchy numbers

Posted on 24/01/2024 by Peter Cameron

Following on from the earlier post, the new version of the paper has just gone on the arXiv: 2311.15652 (version 2). If we say that n is a Cauchy number if there is a finite set F of finite groups, … Continue reading →

Posted in doing mathematics, exposition | Tagged , | 9 Comments

Cauchy’s theorem for the prime 6

Posted on 18/01/2024 by Peter Cameron

Before you think I have gone totally crackers: Cauchy’s theorem says that a finite group whose order is divisible by a prime number p contains a subgroup which is cyclic of order p. My co-authors and I have proved some … Continue reading →

Posted in mathematics | Tagged | 8 Comments

Simon Norton lecture

Posted on 13/01/2024 by Peter Cameron

I have been honoured by an invitation to give the inaugural Simon Norton lecture at the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences on 12 February. The webpage is here. Of course there are other people who knew Simon better than I … Continue reading →

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New Year

Posted on 01/01/2024 by Peter Cameron

The youth could not help breaking a rule of courtesy towards this heavily burdened and yet, as he felt, noble man by asking: “But tell me, I beseech you, why do you carry on such wars on your star? Who … Continue reading →

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Programming and typesetting

Posted on 19/12/2023 by Peter Cameron

Is computer typesetting a kind of programming? One of the pioneers, Donald Knuth, clearly thought so. In The TeXBook, he gives TeX code for computing and typesetting the first thirty primes; apart from anything else, this demonstrates that TeX has … Continue reading →

Posted in books, publishing | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments