Google+ 1, Facebook 0 July 19, 2011
Posted by Ben Webster in Uncategorized.5 comments
Well, that’s one more thoughtful conversation on mathematical conversation on mathematical topics on Google+ than I have ever seen on Facebook. This bodes well, methinks.
The N x N x N Rubix cube, as N goes to the infinity July 19, 2011
Posted by Ben Webster in fun problems.1 comment so far
This is fairly awesome. I have nothing intelligent to say about it, though.
Izabella Laba on the NSERC Long Range Plan July 18, 2011
Posted by Ben Webster in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
If you haven’t been reading Izabella Laba’s series on NSERC, you really should be. It’s a great example of how blogs give mathematicians a much wider voice to speak out on important issues. I don’t have a lot of knowledge or perspective on funding for Canadian mathematics, but she does not paint a pretty picture.
Grant applications and FOIA July 18, 2011
Posted by Ben Webster in grants.10 comments
Doron Zeilberger seems to be thinking along similar lines to me (apparently by coincidence, though he does link to one of my posts). He’s willing to take things a step further than me, though, and filled out a FOIA request for grant proposal of a colleague who declined a request to share his.
While I don’t plan on filling out a bunch of such requests (apparently somewhat unpleasant for the recipient), I think this makes a very important point: grant proposals are by law public information. (more…)
Why graded bi-algebras have antipodes July 7, 2011
Posted by David Speyer in Uncategorized.6 comments
The point of this post is to give a quick proof of a certain fact about bi-algebras. Namely, if 
This statement came up at the cluster algebras work shop in Oregon a few weeks ago, and most people seemed to feel it was mysterious. But, in fact, the concept of the proof is very simple. When your Hopf algebra is a group algebra, then the antipode is the map 
I’ll give the necessary definitions below the fold, but this is written for people who are already happy with the definitions of bi-algebras and Hopf algebras.
(more…)
Is having a pay copy-editing service a new low? July 6, 2011
Posted by Ben Webster in Uncategorized.24 comments
Felipe Voloch calls the introduction of a service by which one pays Elsevier to fix the English of your article “a new new low”. This wasn’t my reaction at all, and I was curious what people thought of this.
(more…)
