lieven le bruyn's blog
egotism
Don’t realize how lucky I am
Sep 27th
After a difficult time for us all, PD1 tells me she finally ‘found her drive’ again : she hopes to finish her 2nd(!) master in fine arts this year as well as her teaching-diplome. Besides, she teaches evening arts-classes twice a week, organizes exhibitions, enters competitions, wins prizes … Looking at the time-stamps on her emails, there are simply not enough hours in a day to fulfill her many ambitions.
Yesterday she made a blitz-appearance, on her way to a variety of exciting other encounters.
PD1 : And, what about you? A lot of teaching this year?
me : Yes (sigh), the first semester is really hard. I’ve an obligatory 60 hours course in each of the three bachelor years, and two courses in the masters. Fortunately, the master-students all wanted a different topic, so they only pop in to ask questions when they get stuck with their reading courses. But still, officially I’ll be teaching 300 hours before christmas.
PD1 : Yeah, yeah, officially… But, then there are exercises and so. How much time do you really have to teach in front of a blackboard?
me : Well, let’s see. Wednesday afternoon I have the 2nd year, thursday afternoon the first and friday morning the third year.
PD1 : Is that all?
me : huh? Yes…
PD1 : Wow! You only have to teach three half days a week and can spend all your other time doing mathematics! A pretty good deal isn’t it?
me : Yeah, I guess I don’t realize often enough just how lucky I am …
vaCation reading (3)
Aug 10th
Over the last month a pile of books grew in our living room to impressive heights, intended to be packed for our usual 3+week vacation to the south of France. From the outset it was clear that ‘circumstances’ (see title for hint) forced us to slim it down to 2 weeks-max, this year.
So, last week I did divide the pile into two, those books I really wanted to read on vacation and those that could wait a bit longer. But then, a few days ago, the bigC stroke again, making it imperative to change our plans (and probably forget about vacation at all, this year). There’s a slim chance we’ll get away for a couple of days, so I made a further selection, just in case.
Below, I’ll give the original list (as well as their fate in the selection process) hoping that you can take them all with you, that is, if life treats your loved ones gentler…
In the category physics-general public books :
- The goldilock enigma (final selection)
- The fabric of the cosmos (got through the first round, but no further)
- Warped passages (will have to wait)
- The fabric of reality (will have to wait)
In the category mathematics-general public books :
- Prime obsession (final selection)
- Prime numbers (got through the first round, may make it)
- The code book (will have to wait)
- Fermat’s last theorem (will have to wait)
In the category mathematics :
- Vertex operator algebras and the Monster (final selection, but don’t read too much into this)
- From error correcting codes through sphere packings to simple groups (will have to wait)
- Moonshine beyond the Monster (will have to wait) but I may take Gannon’s paper along
In the category literature :
- The Tent (final selection, just read the column encouraging the young and you’ll know why)
- The stone gods (reluctantly but will have to wait)
- Darkmans (final selection)
In the category litter-ature :
- Stalin’s ghost (will have to wait)
- Sepulchre (will have to wait)
- The Lord’s day (will have to wait)
bloomsday 2 : BistroMath
Jun 16th
Conceptual blog-proposals
- bloomsday 2 : BistroMath
- the future of this blog
- the future of this blog (2)
- the future of… (3)
Exactly one year ago this blog was briefly renamed MoonshineMath. The concept being that it would focus on the mathematics surrounding the monster group & moonshine. Well, I got as far as the Mathieu groups…
After a couple of months, I changed the name back to neverendingbooks because I needed the freedom to post on any topic I wanted. I know some people preferred the name MoonshineMath, but so be it, anyone’s free to borrow that name for his/her own blog.
Today it’s bloomsday again, and, as I’m a cyclical guy, I have another idea for a conceptual blog : the bistromath chronicles (or something along this line).
Here’s the relevant section from the Hitchhikers guide
Bistromathics itself is simply a revolutionary new way of understanding the behavior of numbers. …
Numbers written on restaurant checks within the confines of restaurants do not follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces of paper in any other parts of the Universe.
This single statement took the scientific world by storm. It completely revolutionized it.So many mathematical conferences got hold in such good restaurants that many of the finest minds of a generation died of obesity and heart failure and the science of math was put back by years.
Right, so what’s the idea? Well, on numerous occasions Ive stated that any math-blog can only survive as a group-blog. I did approach a lot of people directly, but, as you have noticed, without too much success… Most of them couldnt see themselves contributing to a blog for one of these reasons : it costs too much energy and/or it’s way too inefficient. They say : career-wise there are far cleverer ways to spend my energy than to write a blog. And… there’s no way I can argue against this.
Whence plan B : set up a group-blog for a fixed amount of time (say one year), expect contributors to write one or two series of about 4 posts on their chosen topic, re-edit the better series afterwards and turn them into a book.
But, in order to make a coherent book proposal out of blog-post-series, they’d better center around a common theme, whence the BistroMath ploy. Imagine that some of these forgotten “restaurant-check-notes” are discovered, decoded and explained. Apart from the mathematics, one is free to invent new recepies or add descriptions of restaurants with some mathematical history, etc. etc.
One possible scenario (but I’m sure you will have much better ideas) : part of the knotation is found on a restaurant-check of some Italian restaurant. This allow to explain Conway’s theory of rational tangles, give the perfect way to cook spaghetti to experiment with tangles and tell the history of Manin’s Italian restaurant in Bonn where (it is rumoured) the 1998 Fields medals were decided…
But then, there is no limit to your imagination as long as it somewhat fits within the framework. For example, I’d love to read the transcripts of a chat-session in SecondLife between Dedekind and Conway on the construction of real numbers… I hope you get the drift.
I’m not going to rename neverendingbooks again, but am willing to set up the BistroMath blog provided
- Five to ten people are interested to participate
- At least one book-editor shows an interest
Clearly, people already blogging are invited and are allowed to cross-post (in fact, that’s what I will do if it ever gets so far). Finally, if you are not willing to contribute blog-posts but like the idea and are willing to contribute to it in any other way, we are still auditioning for chanting monks
The small group of monks who had taken up hanging around the major research institutes singing strange chants to the effect that the Universe was only a figment of its own imagination were eventually given a street theater grant and went away.
And, if you do not like this idea, there will be another bloomsday-idea next year…
valentines_night@intensive_care
Feb 17th
Not your idea of a romantic evening out? Neither it’s mine, but then, sometimes shit happens…
Blogging and monitoring this server’s status are no priorities at the moment, so please switch to RSS-syndication, if you haven’t done it already.
ps. all’s fine now and, I’ll be back.
censured post : bloggers’ block
Feb 6th
Below an up-till-now hidden post, written november last year, trying to explain the long blog-silence at neverendingbooks during october-november 2007…
A couple of months ago a publisher approached me, out of the blue, to consider writing a book about mathematics for the general audience (in Dutch (?!)). Okay, I brought this on myself hinting at the possibility in this post
Recently, I’ve been playing with the idea of writing a book for the general public. Its title is still unclear to me (though an idea might be “The disposable science”, better suggestions are of course wellcome) but I’ve fixed the subtitle as “Mathematics’ puzzling fall from grace”. The book’s concept is simple : I would consider the mathematical puzzles creating an hype over the last three centuries : the 14-15 puzzle for the 19th century, Rubik’s cube for the 20th century and, of course, Sudoku for the present century. For each puzzle, I would describe its origin, the mathematics involved and how it can be used to solve the puzzle and, finally, what the differing quality of these puzzles tells us about mathematics’ changing standing in society over the period. Needless to say, the subtitle already gives away my point of view. The final part of the book would then be more optimistic. What kind of puzzles should we promote for mathematical thinking to have a fighting chance to survive in the near future?
While I still like the idea and am considering the proposal, chances are low this book ever materializes : the blog-title says it all…
Then, about a month ago I got some incoming links from a variety of Flemish blogs. From their posts I learned that the leading Science-magazine for the low countries, Natuur, Wetenschap & Techniek (Nature, Science & Technology), featured an article on Flemish science-blogs and that this blog might be among the ones covered. It sure would explain the publisher’s sudden interest. Of course, by that time the relevant volume of NW&T was out of circulation so I had to order a backcopy to find out what was going on. Here’s the relevant section, written by their editor Erick Vermeulen (as well as an attempt to translate it)
Sliding puzzle For those who want more scientific depth1, there is the English blog by Antwerp professor algebra & geometry Lieven Le Bruyn, MoonshineMath2. Le Bruyn offers a number of mathematical descriptions, most of them relating to group theory and in particular the so called monster-group and monstrous moonshine. He mentions some puzzles in passing such as the well known sliding puzzle with 15 pieces sliding horizontally and vertically in a 4 by 4 matrix. Le Bruyn argues that this ’15-puzzle3’ was the hype of the 19th century as was the Rubik cube for the 20th and is Sudoku for the 21st century.
Interesting is Le Bruyn’s mathematical description of the M(13)-puzzle4 developed by John Conway. It has 13 points on a circle, twelve of them carrying a numbered counter. Every point is connected via lines to all others5. Whenever a counter jumps to the empty spot, two others exchange places. Le Bruyn promises the blog-visitor new variants to come6. We are curious.
Of course, the genuine puzzler can leave all this theory for what it is, use the Java-applet7 and painfully try to move the counters around the circle according to the rules of the game.
Some people crave for this kind of media-attention. On me it merely has a blocking-effect. Still, as the end of my first-semester courses comes within sight, I might try to shake it off…
- their interpretation, not mine [↩]
- indicates when the article was written… [↩]
- The 15-puzzle groupoid [↩]
- Conway’s M(13)-puzzle [↩]
- a slight simplification [↩]
- did I? [↩]
- Egner’s M(13)-applet [↩]
Hi, I'm a professor of mathematics at the University of Antwerp, in Belgium. My research areas are non-commutative algebra and non-commutative geometry. Sometimes, you can also find me here :
