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23 search results for "latexrender"

working archive plugin, please!

Over the last two weeks Ive ported all old neverendingbooks-post from the last 4 years to a nearly readable format. Some tiny problems remain : a few TeX-heavy old posts are still in $…$ format rather than LaTeXrender-compatible (but Ill fix this soon), a few links may turn out to be dead (still have to check out those), TheLibrary-project links do not exist at the moment (have to decide whether to revive the project or to start a similar idea afresh), some other techie-things such as FoaF-stuff will be updated/expanded soon, et. etc. (and still have to port some 20 odd posts).

Anyway, the good news being that we went from about 40 posts since last july to over 310 posts, all open to the internal Search engine. Having all this stuff online is only useful if one can browse through it easily, so I wanted to install a proper up-to-date archive-plugin…

The current theme Redoable has build-in support for the Extended Live Archives v0.10beta-r18 plugin which would be ideal if I could get it installed… Im not the total newbie in installing WordPress-plugins and Ive read all the documentation and the support-forum and chmodded whathever I felt like chmodding, but still no success… If you know how to kick it into caching the necessary files, please drop a comment!

The next alternative Ive tried was the AWSOM Archive Version 1.2.3 plugin which gave me a pull-down menu just under the title-bar but not much seems to happen when using bloody Safari (Flock was OK though). Maybe Ill give it another go…

UPDATE (jan. 9th) : The AWSOM Archive seems to be working fine with the Redoable theme when custom installed in the footer. So, there is now a pulldown-menu at the bottom of the page.

**UPDATE (jan. 12th) : Ive installed the new version 1.3 of AWSOM Archive and it works from the default position **

At a loss I opted in the end for the simplest (though not the most aesthetic) plugin : Justin Blanton’s Smart Archives. This provides a year-month scheme at the top followed by a reverse ordered list of all months and titles of posts and is available as the arXiv neverendingbooks link available also from the sidebar (up, second link). I hope it will help you not to get too lost on this site…

Suggestions for a working-from-the-box WordPress Archive plugin, anyone???

4 Comments

mathML and work ahead

It has
been a difficult design decision, but I’m going to replace the LaTeXRender WordPress
Plugin
for mathML as the
default TeX-interface for NeverEndingBooks. I will keep LaTeXRender on
standby as I may have to use exotic packages or commands that iTeX does
not deliver, but for most math-related posts, MathML will do the job
nicely (as the n-category
cafe
shows every day (or even more often)). Not that I stopped being
a dilettante but I’m going to do most of my writings (including
blog-posts) using Scrivener (more on this
another time) and Scrivener supports MultiMarkdown and allows exporting to LaTeX and XHTML (using MathML).

I could never have pulled this off in such a short time without Jacques Distler
more or less on constant stand-by (thanks Jacques!). Looking at the
times his emails were send I have no idea in which time zone he lives
(let alone sleeps…). So, here a walk-through the changes :

As
I’m on WP 2.0.5 I’ll start with Frederick’ post. He tells me I have to install first the itex2MML binary as
explained by
Jacques
but I find that there is more recent
material
and therefore download the most recent imath2MML-package
and follow the readme. There is a Mac OSX binary but it’s not clear
for what processor (PPC/Intel/Binary) but a quick mail to Jacques learns
me that it’s PPC which is fine by me but on the spot he puts a
universal binary online, so whatever your Mac is you can just download
the binary, copy it to /usr/local/bin and make sure its chmodded
755.

Back to Frederick’s post, download and install the plugin itexToMML.php in the usual way
(fortunately I spot just in time that I have to change one line saying
where my itex2MML binary is (in Frederick’s file it is NOT the default
location)). You can verify whether the plugin and itex2MML do what they
are supposed to do by typing a LaTeX-command in a post and save it. The
output will not produce the desired formula but have a look at the
source file and see whether there is some mathML code in it. If so,
fine! If not, go back and check everything.

If this works, it is
“merely” a problem of getting your mathML served. Frederick suggests
to unpack wordpress_mathML.zip in the wp-includes directory (but you
better make sure you have made a copy of the original class.php and
functions-formatting.php files. In the end I decided against this
approach (that is, to replace only the functions-formatting.php but NOT
the class.php file). If you have two or more themes you want to
maintain, it is probably better to change the headers (because this is
what we have to do to get mathML served) only in those themes which are
XML-sound. In my case, the Command Line Interface theme most certainly is NOT!!!).

Go to your
theme-files and look for the header.php (or similar) file and replace
the default header by the code in the addendum to
this post
within php-tags. If you can go to your blog-page then you
are in good shape and things should work well (apart possibly from
layout considerations, see below). Of course, in my case i was greeted
by ” XML “yellow screen of death” (as Jacques calls
it) and I was convinced I did something wrong, so I tried out several
useless things for a couple of hours before it dawned on me that the
reason might just be that my blog-files were not valid XHTML (and the
new headers are very demanding on serving only well-form XHTML). I had
to modify all changes I made to sidebars etc. as well as rewrite parts
of my first posts (I used to take a rather liberal view on writing
blog-posts, writing a mixture between Markdown and improvised HTML and
in the process was very lax about closing IMG-tags and the likes).
But after some time and numerous corrections to the files I got the
main-page up and running (and even had the mathML served as a readable
formula) apart from the fact that I barely recognized my own site.

I printed out source files of the page with and without changed
headers and couldn’t find a difference. So, it had to do with the
CSS-style files, but why on earth would the new headers be picky about
CSS? But as a last resort, after narrowing the search down to one
CSS-line, I asked Jacques whether he had an idea what went on. His reply
will be remembered for quite some time :

A fascinating
question. The answer is that it *is* following the CSS directive, but
in XHTML, ‘body’ is not what you think it is. ‘body’ is just big enough
to contain its content. It does not fill the viewport. ‘html’ fills the
viewport. The solution (a solution) is described in
http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/000203.html

Many hours later, I still haven’t got a clue what
this is all about, but I blindly followed the hint and surely all
problems vanished. In short, another day wasted in front of a
computer-screen.

At the moment I’m back to old headers and
will not be writing mathML for some time as I have the vast job ahead to
validate all my previous posts to XHTML-standards (if not you would see
more yellows screens of death than anything else. So, here’s the
strategy I’ll be taking in the weeks ahead (I’ll sleep on it tonight
so if any of you think there is a better way, reply quickly)

  • rewrite each and every post in proper MultiMarkdown using iTeX for
    the most common math and only resorting to LaTeXRender for exotic things
    (such as Sudoku, Chess, Dvonn) and run these posts through Markdown
    (to get basic HTML and all links in place).
  • download these
    files to the WP-database (so that in the CLI-interface you will be able
    to follow all links, but will read all iTeX as TeX-commands (as the
    command line intended after all).
  • in the process change all
    broken links to the default permalink-structure (with index.php?p=231 or
    so).

Clearly, this is a work that will take a couple of
weeks but it may be fun to reread these old posts and possibly add new
information about the subjects. When I’m making these changes, I’ll
use the new headers so if you are using a smart browser look out for the
yellow screens. When they happen, either use a dumb browser (such as
Safari) or go into CLI-interface mode where everything should still
work. I plan to start with the oldest posts as this seems more fun to
me.

One Comment

command line interface

Way
back in 1999 I read Neal Stephenson’s pamphlet In the Beginning ! Was the Command Line and
decided I should and would have Linux running on my clamshell iBook.
Needless to say this was (a) a foolish idea and (b) not entirely trivial
in those dark OS 9-days. Still, I somehow managed with the help op PPC Linux and was
proudly wearing their T-shirt (at least for a couple of weeks in early
2000). Fortunately, as a brief OS X
history
recalls, OS X was released March 24, 2001 and put an end to
my Linux-folly and I’m pretty certain even Neal Stephenson is on Mac OSX
these days.

Needless to say I couldn’t resist installing the
Wordpress CLI-theme
the moment I spotted it! A command line
interface to your blog! awesome! If you want to have a go at the
original version, take a look at Rod McFarland’s blog.
Just type ‘ls’ to the prompt and you’ll be hooked. Or you can have a
look at the command line interface of NeverEndingBooks by going to the
left sidebar and clicking CLI under the ‘Command Line Version’ header
(don’t be afraid you can always come back by clicking on the
GUI-interface over there). My design is black on a light-gray background
and is no where near as cool as the original theme but it was the only
quick way around some limitations of the CLI-theme.

The
CLI-theme operates as a front-end via a small interpreter which draws
the information directly from the WordPress-database. As a result you
loose the effect of all post-processing by plugins such as Markdown and LatexRender two of
the plugins I use most! I could still live with the idea that pure LaTeX
was served to a CLI-environment between tex-tags, but surely I didn’t
want to loose all my links! The quick (and extremely dirty) way around
it was to resubmit the relevant part of the HTML-source files of the
GUI-frontend posts to the WP-database. And to serve the same LaTeX-gifs
to the GUI and CLI interface I needed the backgound to be rather light
gray (taking #BDBDBD gray would have been much nicer wrt. the cool
rasterized grayed-images but then some of the more recent LaTeX-gifs
became partially unreadable). Oh, and in the process I had to update the
permalink structure, thereby wrecking allmost all internal
reference-links (but I’ll sort them out soon, I promise).

So, a
lot of work for a rather meagre result. What do I like about the
CLI-interface (apart from old time nostalgia)? I really like the
searching facility. Just type ‘search yourword’ to the prompt and it
will give you all posts containing that word (much quicker than in the
GUI-interface) and if you remember at least one word from a post-title,
feeding it to the prompt will give you the entire post (or a list of
posts if the same word appears in different posts). Try out typing
‘Perelman’ to see what I mean. Besides, bots don’t seem to know what to
do with the CLI-interface so for the few days I had this theme as my
default theme I was alone on NeverEndingBooks mast of the time (which
helped a lot having to change that many posts). So, whenever I want to
have the site to myself I’ll just change the default theme from now
on.

Still, I did put back the old GUI as default because the
CLI-theme still has a few drawbacks. Such as, it is impossible to write
a sizable comment (not that too many of you do this, but anyway) and
some other quirks. Still Rod McFarland is working on a version 2 (and
even set up a google-group for
those who want to code along, and maybe I’ll join the effort) which
promises a great improvement and I’m rather confident that by version
3.14 it will be in a state that I’ll have the CLI-interface as my
default. Until then, I’ll keep up the two front-ends and allow you to
toggle as you like (your browser will remember your preference).

I realize most of you are youngsters and not of my cpu2
generation so have a hard time imagining how exiting a command line
prompt is. Fortunately, Neal Stephenson has made the full text of “In
the beginning ! was the command line” available as a
free download. Print it out and enjoy!

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why nag? (1)

Let us
take a hopeless problem, motivate why something like non-commutative
algebraic geometry might help to solve it, and verify whether this
promise is kept.

Suppose we want to know all solutions in invertible
matrices to the braid relation (or Yang-Baxter equation)

X Y X
= Y X Y

All such solutions (for varying size of matrices)
form an additive Abelian category \mathbf{rep}~B_3, so a big step forward would be to know all its
simple solutions (that is, those whose matrices cannot be brought in
upper triangular block form). A literature check shows that even this
task is far too ambitious. The best result to date is the classification
due to Imre Tuba and
Hans Wenzl
of simple solutions of which the matrix size is at most
5.

For fixed matrix size n, finding solutions in \mathbf{rep}~B_3 is the same as solving a system of n^2 cubic
polynomial relations in 2n^2
unknowns, which quickly becomes a daunting task. Algebraic geometry
tells us that all solutions, say \mathbf{rep}_n~B_3 form an affine closed subvariety of n^2-dimensional affine space. If we assume that \mathbf{rep}_n~B_3 is a smooth variety (that is, a manifold) and
if we know one solution explicitly, then we can use the tangent space in
this point to linearize the problem and to get at all solutions in a
neighborhood.

So, here is an idea : assume that \mathbf{rep}~B_3 itself would be a non-commutative manifold, then
we might linearize our problem by considering tangent spaces and obtain
new solutions out of already known ones. But, what is a non-commutative
manifold? Well, by the above we at least require that for all integers n
the commutative variety \mathbf{rep}_n~B_3 is a commutative manifold.

But, there
is still some redundancy in our problem : if (X,Y) is a
solution, then so is any conjugated pair (g^{-1}Xg,g^{-1}Yg) where g \in
GL_n is a basechange matrix. In categorical terms, we are only
interested in isomorphism classes of solutions. Again, if we fix the
size n of matrix-solutions, we consider the affine variety \mathbf{rep}_n~B_3 as a variety with a GL_n-action
and we like to classify the orbits of simple solutions. If \mathbf{rep}_n~B_3 is a manifold then the theory of Luna slices
provides a method, both to linearize the problem as well as to reduce
its complexity. Instead of the tangent space we consider the normal
space N to the GL_n-orbit
(in a suitable solution). On this affine space, the stabilizer subgroup
GL(\alpha) acts and there is a natural one-to-one
correspondence between GL_n-orbits
in \mathbf{rep}_n~B_3 and GL(\alpha)-orbits in the normal space N (at least in a
neighborhood of the solution).

So, here is a refinement of the
idea : we would like to view \mathbf{rep}~B_3 as a non-commutative manifold with a group action
given by the notion of isomorphism. Then, in order to get new isoclasses
of solutions from a constructed one we want to reduce the size of our
problem by considering a linearization (the normal space to the orbit)
and on it an easier isomorphism problem.

However, we immediately
encounter a problem : calculating ranks of Jacobians we discover that
already \mathbf{rep}_2~B_3 is not a smooth variety so there is not a
chance in the world that \mathbf{rep}~B_3 might be a useful non-commutative manifold.
Still, if (X,Y) is a
solution to the braid relation, then the matrix (XYX)^2
commutes with both X and Y.

If (X,Y) is a
simple solution, this means that after performing a basechange, C=(XYX)^2 becomes a scalar matrix, say \lambda^6 1_n. But then, (X_1,Y_1) =
(\lambda^{-1}X,\lambda^{-1}Y) is a solution to

XYX = YXY , (XYX)^2 = 1

and all such solutions form a
non-commutative closed subvariety, say \mathbf{rep}~\Gamma of \mathbf{rep}~B_3 and if we know all (isomorphism classes of)
simple solutions in \mathbf{rep}~\Gamma we have solved our problem as we just have to
bring in the additional scalar \lambda \in \mathbb{C}^*.

Here we strike gold : \mathbf{rep}~\Gamma is indeed a non-commutative manifold. This can
be seen by identifying \Gamma
with one of the most famous discrete infinite groups in mathematics :
the modular group PSL_2(\mathbb{Z}). The modular group acts by Mobius
transformations on the upper half plane and this action can be used to
write PSL_2(\mathbb{Z}) as the free group product \mathbb{Z}_2 \ast \mathbb{Z}_3. Finally, using
classical representation theory of finite groups it follows that indeed
all \mathbf{rep}_n~\Gamma are commutative manifolds (possibly having
many connected components)! So, let us try to linearize this problem by
looking at its non-commutative tangent space, if we can figure out what
this might be.

Here is another idea (or rather a dogma) : in the
world of non-commutative manifolds, the role of affine spaces is played
by \mathbf{rep}~Q the representations of finite quivers Q. A quiver
is just on oriented graph and a representation of it assigns to each
vertex a finite dimensional vector space and to each arrow a linear map
between the vertex-vector spaces. The notion of isomorphism in \mathbf{rep}~Q is of course induced by base change actions in all
of these vertex-vector spaces. (to be continued)

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markLaTeXdown

Clearly,
an extended version of Markdown
including LaTeX-commands would be useful for mathematicians and surely
I’m not the first to think about this. In fact, I found a somewhat
pompous text New adventures
if hifi text
by someone claiming to have done precisely that (though
he doesn’t give much details nor post a version of his altered program).

Still, it is pretty clear how to convert a _Markdown+LaTeX_
textfile to plain LaTeX (at least for regex-lovers
). Modify the _Markdown.pl_ script so that the Markdown markup is
translated not to HTML-tags but to LaTeX-commands.

More
interesting material can be found in a thread on _Markdown and
Mathematics_ starting with this post. In it, they search for a good way to include
LaTeX-mathematical commands in a MarkDown text. In fact, this is part of
a more general quest for a good _escape character_ in Markdown to
create _Markdown plus something_ versions. They opt for
{{ and }} rather than the usual
$ signs.

I think the alternatives [
tex ]
and [ /tex ] are slightly better because
then you could feed the text to a functional WordPress installation with the
LaTeXRender
plugin installed and copy the relevant part from the HTML-source of
the resulting post to get a HTML-version of the mathematical text with
all LaTeX-code converted to pictures. Clearly, typing the suggested tags
is somewhat cumbersome so I would type them using the
{{ and }} proposal (one
{ is not enough because a lot a LaTeX code uses single
curly brackets) and then do a global replace to get the
LaTeXRender-tags.

Even more interesting would be to have a
version of the html2txt.py script for LaTeX, that is,
converting a LaTeX-file to Markdown + LaTeXcode which would give an easy
way to convert your existing papers to HTML if you feed the LaTeXRender
plugin with all the required newcommands and packages.

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tiger days 1

It
should be really day 2 but yesterday evening I was a bit overoptimistic
and tried to get MySQL, Ruby, Rails & Tracks installed and in the
process totally wrecked my Ruby-system (and probably a few things more).
Besides, I found out that the _Carbon Copy Cloner_ work-around
doesn\’t really work (that is, one canNOT boot from the cloned copy)
etc. etc. In short, a lot of frustration. So today, I started all over
again (using the install notes below to guide me and so I could reduce
the total time to about 2 hrs). But, as this was the easy bit (still to
come : MySQL, PHP, WordPress+LatexRender, Ruby&Tracks etc.) and I
don\’t want to redo everything again when I do something horribly wrong
I changed my overall tactics. I\’ll keep identical copies on my iBook
and on my iMac and do the next batch of installs on just one machine and
check whether everything works before syncing it to the other. If
something gets messed up I resync to the state of the previous day. Just
one question left : what program to use for the backup/restore now that
CCC seems to be broken? Fortunately, there is still PsyncX which still
seems to work fine (at least today…). Below, for what it is worth,
yesterday\’s log of events :

Okay, I checked that I can still
TeX papers and connect to the printer on the iMac (after Archive/Install
to Tiger). Most other things have broken down, such as my mind on tracks
and my MySQL-database, but I\’m quite hopeful I can rebuild them all.
So, time for a drastic _Erase/Install_ on my iBook.

12:04 : One final safety check. Connect the external
HD, select the _Carbon Copy Cloned_ partition as StartUp Disk and
do a Restart to verify that it can be cloned back should everything go
terribly wrong. Seems to work nicely, so change again from StartUp disk,
restart and disconnect the external HD.

12:16
: Printed the macdevcenter install
tips
and made a fresh pot of coffee. Took the unread part of the
newspaper with me, connected Jan\’s iPod, made it the new StartUp disk
and did another Restart.

12:24 : Selected
\’English\’ as the main language. Selected _DiskUtility_ from the
_Utilities_ menu (before you have to select a Disk destination).
Selected the HD, clicked _Erase_ and choose _Erase Free
Space_ first, then choose the SecurityOption to \’zero out data\’.
(Both steps require a lot of extra time but what is the point of doing
an Erase if you don\’t erase properly? Btw. the macdev-article does not
agree with me on this point.) Meanwhile, had some coffee and a
read…

13:23 : Did quit DiskUtility
which brought me back to the Installer. Selected the HD and clicked on
_Options_ to select Erase&Install and clicked Continue. Then
clicked on _Custom Install_ to choose which Packages to Install.
Did choose _all_ Printer Drivers but in _Language
Translations_ only selected : French, German and Dutch. Didn\’t
select X11! Clicked : _Install_ and had yet another cup of
coffee…

13:45 : Restarted! Got me into
the SetupAssistant. Didn\’t choose to transfer info from another Mac. It
selected our wireless network immediately, and asked me for my .Mac
account info. Did create my main account and finished at
13:53 Only had to stop iTunes from wanting to put
PodSoftware onto the connected iPod… Checked for SoftwareUpdate
but there was none. Am connected to internet but had to add my other
mail-account. Done and received email at 14:05 Found
our Printer but did gray out two-sided printing (have to remember later
how I did set this up…).

14:12 : Time
to add the _Xcode Tools_ : opened the folder on the iPod and
clicked on _XcodeTools.mpkg_ . Followed he default installation.
Finished and deconnected the iPod at 14:24 Took a break
to decide how to continue. (21.97Gb available) Update today : do a
custom install using also cross-development!

14:37 : Okay, first things first : get myself a
working TeX-system starting from this page
to get the latest version of TeXShop and the i-Installer and place both
in the Applications folder and in the Dock. Placed the _To Your
Library_ folder of TeXShop in my ~/Library (containing the texmf
etc. path for pdfsync). Then followed this
page
and the i-Installer to install the packages in the right order
:

  • FreeType 2
  • libwmf
  • Ghostscript
    8
  • ImageMagick
  • FontForge
  • TeX (did a
    Full install with 2005 Devel.)

Had a brief look
through the other packages and maybe I\’ll install _Latex to RTF_
and _RTF 2 Latex_ later. Created a _DMG_ folder and put
the downloaded disk images into it. Created a_PAPERS_ folder and
transferred the last version of the paper with Stijn to check TeX but
clearly it couldn\’t find the _diagrams.sty_ file (I know I have
to quit using this, but I\’ll better get it over for backward
compatibility; put it into ~/Library/texmf/tex/latex/. Ran TeX again
without problems this time and checked the nice source-PDF syncing
(apple-click to jump). Finished : 15:37

15:56 : As long as administration sends me
_Word_ documents and expects me to read them, I have no choice
but to install _Office X_ . The upshot was that while searching
for the OfficeCD I found also the HP LaserJet 1320 CD and installed the
driver so now I can print 2-sided (using Printer Setup Utility) . Done :
16:15

16:45 : Used the
_.mac System Preference_ to get syncing started with my iDisk to
get adresses, calendars and passwords etc. on my iBook. Also filled in
the Sharing Preferences. Now that I have the passwords at hand, it is
time to get the latest versions of some of the shareware I own (and copy
their disk image to the DMG folder)

  • DevonThink
  • DenonAgent
  • Pod2Go : the site seems to be down at the
    moment but fortunately, I have a disk image of it which will have to do
    for now (note to self : check later whether the site is permanently
    dead…) Update today : it is up and running again…

and while I\’m at it I may as well get my wallet out and
purchase the full version of _Lite_ versions I like and use a lot
:

Fortunately, there is also a lot of excellent freeware that I
want to use

One of the following days : MySQL, PHP and perhaps Tracks but
first I desperately need to do some maths to kick off from all this
nonsense…

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why nag? (3)

Here is
the construction of this normal space or chart \mathbf{chart}_{\Gamma}. The sub-semigroup of Z^5 (all
dimension vectors of Q) consisting of those vectors \alpha=(a_1,a_2,b_1,b_2,b_3) satisfying the numerical condition a_1+a_2=n=b_1+b_2+b_3 is generated by six dimension vectors,
namely those of the 6 non-isomorphic one-dimensional solutions in \mathbf{rep}~\Gamma

S_1 = \xymatrix@=.4cm{ & & & & \vtx{1} \\ \vtx{1} \ar[rrrru]^1
\ar[rrrrd] \ar[rrrrddd] & & & & \\ & & & & \vtx{0} \\ \vtx{0}
\ar[rrrruuu] \ar[rrrru] \ar[rrrrd] & & & & \\ & & & & \vtx{0}} \qquad
S_2 = \xymatrix@=.4cm{ & & & & \vtx{0} \\ \vtx{0} \ar[rrrru] \ar[rrrrd]
\ar[rrrrddd] & & & & \\& & & & \vtx{1} \\\vtx{1} \ar[rrrruuu]
\ar[rrrru]^1 \ar[rrrrd] & & & & \\ & & & & \vtx{0}}

S_3 = \xymatrix@=.4cm{ & & & & \vtx{0} \\ \vtx{1} \ar[rrrru]
\ar[rrrrd] \ar[rrrrddd]^1 & & & & \\ & & & & \vtx{0} \\ \vtx{0}
\ar[rrrruuu] \ar[rrrru] \ar[rrrrd] & & & & \\ & & & & \vtx{1}} \qquad
S_4 = \xymatrix@=.4cm{ & & & & \vtx{1} \\ \vtx{0} \ar[rrrru] \ar[rrrrd]
\ar[rrrrddd] & & & & \\ & & & & \vtx{0} \\ \vtx{1} \ar[rrrruuu]^1
\ar[rrrru] \ar[rrrrd] & & & & \\ & & & & \vtx{0}}

S_5 = \xymatrix@=.4cm{ & & & & \vtx{0} \\ \vtx{1} \ar[rrrru]
\ar[rrrrd]^1 \ar[rrrrddd] & & & & \\ & & & & \vtx{1} \\ \vtx{0}
\ar[rrrruuu] \ar[rrrru] \ar[rrrrd] & & & & \\ & & & & \vtx{0}} \qquad
S_6 = \xymatrix@=.4cm{ & & & & \vtx{0} \\ \vtx{0} \ar[rrrru] \ar[rrrrd]
\ar[rrrrddd] & & & & \\ & & & & \vtx{0} \\ \vtx{1} \ar[rrrruuu]
\ar[rrrru] \ar[rrrrd]^1 & & & & \\ & & & & \vtx{1}}

In
particular, in any component \mathbf{rep}_{\alpha}~Q containing an open subset of
representations corresponding to solutions in \mathbf{rep}~\Gamma we have a particular semi-simple solution

M = S_1^{\oplus g_1}
\oplus S_2^{\oplus g_2} \oplus S_3^{\oplus g_3} \oplus S_4^{\oplus g_4}
\oplus S_5^{\oplus g_5} \oplus S_6^{\oplus g_6}

and in
particular \alpha =
(g_1+g_3+g_5,g_2+g_4+g_6,g_1+g_4,g_2+g_5,g_3+g_6). The normal space
to the GL(\alpha)-orbit of M in \mathbf{rep}_{\alpha}~Q can be identified with the representation
space \mathbf{rep}_{\beta}~Q where \beta=(g_1,\ldots,g_6) and Q is the quiver of the following
form

\xymatrix{ &
\vtx{g_1} \ar@/^/[ld]^{C_{16}} \ar@/^/[rd]^{C_{12}} & \\ \vtx{g_6}
\ar@/^/[ru]^{C_{61}}  \ar@/^/[d]^{C_{65}} & & \vtx{g_2}
\ar@/^/[lu]^{C_{21}} \ar@/^/[d]^{C_{23}} \\ \vtx{g_5}
\ar@/^/[u]^{C_{56}}  \ar@/^/[rd]^{C_{54}} & & \vtx{g_3}
\ar@/^/[u]^{C_{32}} \ar@/^/[ld]^{C_{34}} \\ & \vtx{g_4}
\ar@/^/[lu]^{C_{45}} \ar@/^/[ru]^{C_{43}}  & }

and we can
even identify how the small matrices C_{ij} fit
into the 3 \times
2 block-decomposition of the base-change matrix B

B = \begin{bmatrix}
\begin{array}{ccc|ccc} 1_{a_1} & 0 & 0 & C_{21} & 0 & C_{61} \\ 0 &
C_{34} & C_{54} & 0 & 1_{a_4} & 0 \\ \hline C_{12} & C_{32} & 0 &
1_{a_2} & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & 1_{a_5} & 0 & C_{45} & C_{65} \\ \hline 0 &
1_{a_3} & 0 & C_{23} & C_{43} & 0 \\ C_{16} & 0 & C_{56} & 0 & 0 &
1_{a_6} \\ \end{array} \end{bmatrix}

Hence, it makes sense
to call Q the non-commutative normal space to the isomorphism problem in
\mathbf{rep}~\Gamma. Moreover, under this correspondence simple
representations of Q (for which both the dimension vectors and
distinguishing characters are known explicitly) correspond to simple
solutions in \mathbf{rep}~\Gamma.

Having completed our promised
approach via non-commutative geometry to the classification problem of
solutions to the braid relation, it is time to collect what we have
learned. Let \beta=(g_1,\ldots,g_6) with n = \gamma_1 + \ldots + \gamma_6, then for every
non-zero scalar \lambda \in \mathbb{C}^* the matrices

X = \lambda B^{-1}
\begin{bmatrix} 1_{g_1+g_4} & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & \rho^2 1_{g_2+g_5} & 0 \\ 0 &
0 & \rho 1_{g_3+g_6} \end{bmatrix} B \begin{bmatrix} 1_{g_1+g_3+g_5} & 0
\\ 0 & -1_{g_2+g_4+g_6} \end{bmatrix}

Y = \lambda \begin{bmatrix}
1_{g_1+g_3+g_5} & 0 \\ 0 & -1_{g_2+g_4+g_6} \end{bmatrix} B^{-1}
\begin{bmatrix} 1_{g_1+g_4} & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & \rho^2 1_{g_2+g_5} & 0 \\ 0 &
0 & \rho 1_{g_3+g_6} \end{bmatrix} B

give a solution of size
n to the braid relation. Moreover, such a solution can be simple only if
the following numerical relations are satisfied

g_i \leq g_{i-1} + g_{i+1}

where indices are viewed
modulo 6. In fact, if these conditions are satisfied then a sufficiently
general representation of Q does determine a simple solution in \mathbf{rep}~B_3 and conversely, any sufficiently general simple n
size solution of the braid relation can be conjugated to one of the
above form. Here, by sufficiently general we mean a Zariski open (hence
dense) subset.

That is, for all integers n we have constructed
nearly all (meaning a dense subset) simple solutions to the braid
relation. As to the classification problem, if we have representants of
simple \beta-dimensional representations of the quiver Q, then the corresponding
solutions (X,Y) of
the braid relation represent different orbits (up to finite overlap
coming from the fact that our linearizations only give an analytic
isomorphism, or in algebraic terms, an etale map). Such representants
can be constructed for low dimensional \beta.
Finally, our approach also indicates why the classification of
braid-relation solutions of size \leq 5 is
easier : from size 6 on there are new classes of simple
Q-representations given by going round the whole six-cycle!

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why nag? (2)

Now, can
we assign such an non-commutative tangent space, that is a \mathbf{rep}~Q for some quiver Q, to \mathbf{rep}~\Gamma? As \Gamma = \mathbb{Z}_2 \ast \mathbb{Z}_3 we may
restrict any solution V=(X,Y)
in \mathbf{rep}~\Gamma to the finite subgroups \mathbb{Z}_2 and \mathbb{Z}_3. Now, representations of finite cyclic groups are
decomposed into eigen-spaces. For example

V \downarrow_{\mathbb{Z}_2} = V_+ \oplus V_-

where V_{\pm} = \{ v \in V~|~g.v = \pm v \} with g the
generator of \mathbb{Z}_2. Similarly,

V
\downarrow_{\mathbb{Z}_3} = V_1 \oplus V_{\rho} \oplus V_{\rho^2}

where \rho is a
primitive 3-rd root of unity. That is, to any solution V \in \mathbf{rep}~\Gamma we have found 5 vector spaces V_+,V_-,V_1,V_{\rho} and V_{\rho^2} so we would like them to correspond to the vertices
of our conjectured quiver Q.

What are the arrows of Q, or
equivalently, is there a natural linear map between the vertex-vector
spaces? Clearly, as

V_+ \oplus V_- = V = V_1 \oplus
V_{\rho} \oplus V_{\rho^2}

any choice of two bases of V (one
compatible with the left-side decomposition, the other with the
right-side decomposition) are related by a basechange matrix B which we
can decompose into six blocks (corresponding to the two decompositions
in 2 resp. 3 subspaces

B =
\begin{bmatrix} B_{11} & B_{12} \\ B_{21} & B_{22} \\ B_{31} & B_{32}
\end{bmatrix}

which gives us 6 linear maps between the
vertex-vector spaces. Hence, to V \in \mathbf{rep}~\Gamma does correspond in a natural way a
representation of dimension vector \alpha=(a_1,a_2,b_1,b_2,b_3) (where dim(V_+)=a_1,\ldots,dim(V_{\rho^2})=b_3) of the quiver Q which
is of the form

\xymatrix{ &
& & & \vtx{b_1} \\ \vtx{a_1} \ar[rrrru]^(.3){B_{11}}
\ar[rrrrd]^(.3){B_{21}} \ar[rrrrddd]_(.2){B_{31}} & & & & \\ & & & &
\vtx{b_2} \\ \vtx{a_2} \ar[rrrruuu]_(.7){B_{12}} \ar[rrrru]_(.7){B_{22}}
\ar[rrrrd]_(.7){B_{23}} & & & & \\ & & & & \vtx{b_3}}

Clearly, not every representation of \mathbf{rep}~Q is obtained in this way. For starters, the
eigen-space decompositions force the numerical restriction

a_1+a_2 = dim(V) = b_1+b_2+b_3

on the
dimension vector and the square matrix constructed from the arrow-linear
maps must be invertible. However, if both these conditions are
satisfied, we can reconstruct the (isomorphism class) of the solution in
\mathbf{rep}~\Gamma from this quiver representation by taking

X = B^{-1} \begin{bmatrix} 1_{b_1} & 0 & 0 \\ 0 &
\rho^2 1_{b_2} & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & \rho 1_{b_3} \end{bmatrix} B
\begin{bmatrix} 1_{a_1} & 0 \\ 0 & -1_{a_2} \end{bmatrix}

Y = \begin{bmatrix} 1_{a_1} & 0 \\ 0 & -1_{a_2} \end{bmatrix}
B^{-1} \begin{bmatrix} 1_{b_1} & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & \rho^2 1_{b_2} & 0 \\ 0 &
0 & \rho 1_{b_3} \end{bmatrix} B

Hence, it makes sense to
view \mathbf{rep}~Q as a linearization of, or as a tangent space to,
\mathbf{rep}~\Gamma. However, though we reduced the study of
solutions of the polynomial system of equations to linear algebra, we
have not reduced the isomorphism problem in size. In fact, if we start
of with a matrix-solution V=(X,Y)
of size n we end up with a quiver-representation of total dimension 2n.
So, can we construct some sort of non-commutative normal space to the
isomorphism classes? That is, is there another quiver Q whose
representations can be interpreted as normal-spaces to orbits in certain
points?

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