# neverendingbooks

• ## Learners and Poly

Brendan Fong, David Spivak and Remy Tuyeras cooked up a vast generalisation of neural networks in their paper Backprop as Functor: A compositional perspective on supervised learning. Here’s a nice introduction to neural networks for category theorists by Bruno Gavranovic. At 1.49m he tries to explain supervised learning with neural networks in one slide. Learners […]

• ## Poly

Following up on the deep learning and toposes-post, I was planning to do something on the logic of neural networks. Prepping for this I saw David Spivak’s paper Learner’s Languages doing exactly that, but in the more general setting of ‘learners’ (see also the deep learning post). And then … I fell under the spell…

• ## Smirnov on $\mathbb{F}_1$ and the RH

Wednesday, Alexander Smirnov (Steklov Institute) gave the first talk in the $\mathbb{F}_1$ world seminar. Here’s his title and abstract: Title: The 10th Discriminant and Tensor Powers of $\mathbb{Z}$ “We plan to discuss very shortly certain achievements and disappointments of the $\mathbb{F}_1$-approach. In addition, we will consider a possibility to apply noncommutative tensor powers of $\mathbb{Z}$…

• ## Deep learning and toposes

Judging from this and that paper, deep learning is the string theory of the 2020s for geometers and representation theorists. String theory is the 90s answer to the tears of algebraic geometers worldwide trying to write the "Applications" part of their grant proposals. https://t.co/AboZ5WkPtc — algebraic geometer BLM (@BarbaraFantechi) December 17, 2021 If you want…

• ## Grothendieck talks

In 2017-18, the seminar Lectures grothendieckiennes took place at the ENS in Paris. Among the speakers were Alain Connes, Pierre Cartier, Laurent Lafforgue and Georges Maltsiniotis. Olivia Caramello, who also contributed to the seminar, posts on her blog Around Toposes that the proceedings of this lectures series is now available from the SMF. Olivia’s blogpost…

• ## The $\mathbb{F}_1$ World Seminar

For some time I knew it was in the making, now they are ready to launch it: The $\mathbb{F}_1$ World Seminar, an online seminar dedicated to the “field with one element”, and its many connections to areas in mathematics such as arithmetic, geometry, representation theory and combinatorics. The organisers are Jaiung Jun, Oliver Lorscheid, Yuri…

• ## Huawei and topos theory

Apart from the initiatives I mentioned last time, Huawei set up a long term collaboration with the IHES, the Huawei Young Talents Program. “Every year, the Huawei Young Talents Program will fund on average 7 postdoctoral fellowships that will be awarded by the Institute’s Scientific Council, only on the basis of scientific excellence. The fellows…

• ## Huawei and French mathematics

Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant, appears to support (and divide) the French mathematical community. I was surprised to see that Laurent Lafforgue’s affiliation recently changed from ‘IHES’ to ‘Huawei’, for example here as one of the organisers of the Lake Como conference on ‘Unifying themes in geometry’. Judging from this short Huawei-clip (in French) he…

• ## Do we need the sphere spectrum?

Last time I mentioned the talk “From noncommutative geometry to the tropical geometry of the scaling site” by Alain Connes, culminating in the canonical isomorphism (last slide of the talk) Or rather, what is actually proved in his paper with Caterina Consani BC-system, absolute cyclotomy and the quantized calculus (and which they conjectured previously to…

• ## Alain Connes on his RH-project

In recent months, my primary focus was on teaching and family matters, so I make advantage of this Christmas break to catch up with some of the things I’ve missed. Peter Woit’s blog alerted me to the existence of the (virtual) Lake Como-conference, end of september: Unifying themes in Geometry. In Corona times, virtual conferences…