Category Archives: events

conferences, seminars, lectures, etc

Peter Sarnak’s Hardy Lecture

Posted on 27/06/2020 by

Yesterday, Peter Sarnak gave the London Mathematical Society’s 2020 Hardy Lecture (remotely). He talked about gaps in the spectra of connected cubic graphs. It was a talk properly described as a tour de force, applying to the problem ideas from … Continue reading →

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GRA workshop 2

Posted on 31/01/2020 by

This workshop was on “Computational and algorithmic aspects” (of groups, representations and applications, presumably). In my opinion, this was the week when the programme really took off. There were many good talks, so as ever I shall just select a … Continue reading →

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GRA Workshop 1

Posted on 15/01/2020 by

Last week was the introductory/instructional workshop for the Isaac Newton Institute’s six-month programme on Groups, Representations and Applications. We were thrown in the deep end right at the start. The first two talks were on what were claimed to be … Continue reading →

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Happy new year

Posted on 31/12/2019 by

I hope the New Year is better than we deserve. I will be spending most of the first six months in Cambridge, at a group theory programme at the Isaac Newton Institute. So hopefully I will have some time for … Continue reading →

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G2D2, 5: The logo revisited

Posted on 10/09/2019 by

There has been further discussion of the G2 logo; here is a brief summary. Elena Konstantinova tells me that it was designed by Vava Stefoglo; her portfolio is here. She is not a mathematician but received a good education in … Continue reading →

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G2D2, 4: the second week

Posted on 04/09/2019 by

The lecturers of the first two minicourses now gave way for the second team. Mike Boyle and Scott Schmieding told us about symbolic dynamics, in particular, subshifts and their automorphism groups. This was particularly valuable to me: I had dove … Continue reading →

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G2D2, 2: first week

Posted on 18/08/2019 by

The campus of the China Three Gorges Hotel has a small river, full of waterlilies and lotus flowers. Beside it runs a main road, along which big water trucks run, shooting atomised water from cannon-like structures; we are told this … Continue reading →

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BCC at Birmingham, days 4 and 5

Posted on 02/08/2019 by

Thursday saw my favourite of the plenary talks. Iain Moffatt told us about ribbon graphs and delta-matroids. Ribbon graphs are essentially the same as graphs drawn on surfaces (we just fatten up each vertex to a disc and each edge … Continue reading →

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BCC at Birmingham, days 1-3

Posted on 31/07/2019 by

This week I am in Birmingham for the British Combinatorial Conference. The organisation of the conference is outstanding. For one small example, yesterday, fifteen minutes before the Business Meeting was due to start, the Chairman noticed that we didn’t have … Continue reading →

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Aliens Do Exist

Posted on 24/07/2019 by

The people from the planet Ade have intercepted radio transmissions from Earth, and have discovered that we know about the Petersen graph and the root system E6. One day, a flying saucer from Ade arrives on Earth and delivers an … Continue reading →

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