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Closure

Published December 31, 2023 by lievenlb

Exactly 20 years ago I wrote my first blogpost, ‘a blogging 2004’. I wasn’t using WordPress yet (but something called pMachine), and this blog was not called ‘neverendingbooks’, but ‘matrix.ua.ac.be’ (the URL of the mac still running this blog).

At the time I wanted to find out whether blogging was something for me. “I’m just starting out. Give me a couple of weeks/months to develop my own style and topics and I’ll change the layout accordingly.”

Well, after 20 years I know what I can, and more important, what I cannot do within this framework. Time to move on.

There are other reasons why this might be the right time to pull the plug.

– I’m on retirement since October 1st and soon I’ll have to vacate my office, containing the webserver on which NeB runs.

– My days are filled with more activities now, and I don’t think you want to read here for example about my struggles with chestnut-farming.

– I like to explore other channels to talk about mathematics. This may happen on Mathstodon, MathOverflow or YouTube. Or it might be through teaching or writing a book, perhaps even a children’s book.

NeB will remain reachable until mid 2024. I’ll check out options to preserve its content after that (suggestions are welcome).

I wish you a better 2024.

WBM

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Grothendieck’s gribouillis (6)

Published October 2, 2023 by lievenlb

After the death of Grothendieck in November 2014, about 30.000 pages of his writings were found in Lasserre.



Since then I’ve been trying to follow what happened to them:

So, what’s new?

Well, finally we have closure!

Last Friday, Grothendieck’s children donated the 30.000 Laserre pages to the Bibliotheque Nationale de France.

Via Des manuscrits inédits du génie des maths Grothendieck entrent à la BnF (and Google-translate):

“The singularity of these manuscripts is that they “cover many areas at the same time” to form “a whole, a + cathedral work +, with undeniable literary qualities”, analyzes Jocelyn Monchamp, curator in the manuscripts department of the BnF.

More than in “Récoltes et semailles”, very autobiographical, the author is “in a metaphysical retreat”, explains the curator, who has been going through the texts with passion for a month. A long-term task as the writing, in fountain pen, is dense and difficult to decipher. “I got used to it… And the advantage for us was that the author had methodically paginated and dated the texts.” One of the parts, entitled “Structures of the psyche”, a book of enigmatic diagrams translating psychology into algebraic language. In another, “The Problem of Evil”, he unfolds over 15,000 pages metaphysical meditations and thoughts on Satan. We sense a man “caught up by the ghosts of his past”, with an adolescence marked by the Shoah, underlines Johanna Grothendieck whose grandfather, a Russian Jew who fled Germany during the war, died at Auschwitz.

The deciphering work will take a long time to understand everything this genius wanted to say.

On Friday, the collection joined the manuscripts department of the Richelieu site, the historic cradle of the BnF, alongside the writings of Pierre and Marie Curie and Louis Pasteur. It will only be viewable by researchers.“This is a unique testimony in the history of science in the 20th century, of major importance for research,” believes Jocelyn Monchamp.

During the ceremony, one of the volumes was placed in a glass case next to a manuscript by the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid.”

Probably, the recent publication of Récoltes et Semailles clinched the deal.

Also, it is unclear at this moment whether the Istituto Grothendieck, which harbours The centre for Grothendieck studies coordinated by Mateo Carmona (see this post) played a role in the decision making, nor what role the Centre will play in the further studies of Grothendieck’s gribouillis.

For other coverage on this, see Hermit ‘scribblings’ of eccentric French math genius unveiled.

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A question of loyalty

Published September 29, 2023 by lievenlb

On the island of two truths, statements are either false (truth-value $0$), Q-true (value $Q$) or K-true (value $K$).

The King and Queen of the island have an opinion on all statements which may differ from their actual truth-value. We say that the Queen believes a statement $p$ is she assigns value $Q$ to it, and that she knows $p$ is she believes $p$ and the actual truth-value of $p$ is indeed $Q$. Similarly for the King, replacing $Q$’s by $K$’s.

All other inhabitants of the island are loyal to the Queen, or to the King, or to both. This means that they agree with the Queen (or King, or both) on all statements they have an opinion on. Two inhabitants are said to be loyal to each other if they agree on all statements they both have an opinion of.

Last time we saw that Queen and King agree on all statements one of them believes to be false, as well as the negation of such statements. This raised the question:

Are the King and Queen loyal to each other? That is, do Queen and King agree on all statements?

We cannot resolve this issue without the information Oscar was able to extract from Pointex in Karin Cvetko-Vah‘s post Pointex:

“Oscar was determined to get some more information. “Could you at least tell me whether the queen and the king know that they’re loyal to themselves?” he asked.
“Well, of course they know that!” replied Pointex.
“You said that a proposition can be Q-TRUE, K-TRUE or FALSE,” Oscar said.
“Yes, of course. What else!” replied Pointex as he threw the cap high up.
“Well, you also said that each native was loyal either to the queen or to the king. I was just wondering … Assume that A is loyal to the queen. Then what is the truth value of the statement: A is loyal to the queen?”
“Q, of course,” answered Pointex as he threw the cap up again.
“And what if A is not loyal to the queen? What is then the truth value of the statement: A is loyal to the queen?”
He barely finished his question as something fell over his face and covered his eyes. It was the funny cap.
“Thanx,” said Pointex as Oscar handed him the cap. “The value is 0, of course.”
“Can the truth value of the statement: ‘A is loyal to the queen’ be K in any case?”
“Well, what do you think? Of course not! What a ridiculous thing to ask!” replied Pointex.”

Puzzle : Show that Queen and King are not loyal to each other, that is, there are statements on which they do not agree.



Solution : ‘The King is loyal to the Queen’ must have actual truth-value $0$ or $Q$, and the sentence ‘The Queen is loyal to the King’ must have actual truth-value $0$ or $K$. But both these sentences are the same as the sentence ‘The Queen and King are loyal to each other’ and as this sentence can have only one truth-value, it must have value $0$ so the statement is false.

Note that we didn’t produce a specific statement on which the Queen and King disagree. Can you find one?

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