Category Archives: What is Mathematics

ICM 2022. Kevin Buzzard: The Rise of Formalism in Mathematics

In this post I would like to report on Kevin Buzzard’s spectacular lecture on moving mathematics toward formal mathematical proofs.  (Here are the slides.) The picture above is based on images from the other spectacular Saturday morning lecture by Laure … Continue reading

Posted in Computer Science and Optimization, ICM2022, Logic and set theory, Mathematics and Computers, Number theory, What is Mathematics | 12 Comments

Richard Stanley: Enumerative and Algebraic Combinatorics in the1960’s and 1970’s

In his comment to the previous post by Igor Pak, Joe Malkevitch referred us to a wonderful paper by Richard Stanley on enumerative and algebraic combinatorics in the 1960’s and 1970’s. See also this post on Richard’s memories regarding the … Continue reading

Posted in Combinatorics, What is Mathematics | Tagged | 1 Comment

Igor Pak: How I chose Enumerative Combinatorics

Originally posted on Igor Pak's blog:
Apologies for not writing anything for awhile. After Feb 24, the math part of the “life and math” slogan lost a bit of relevance, while the actual events were stupefying to the point…

Posted in Combinatorics, What is Mathematics | Tagged | 1 Comment

To cheer you up in difficult times 35 combined with Test Your Intuition 48: Alef’s corner – Jazz and Math

Test your intuition: What is the true title of this drawing?

Posted in Art, Music, Test your intuition, What is Mathematics | Tagged , | 1 Comment

To cheer you up in difficult times 33: Deep learning leads to progress in knot theory and on the conjecture that Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomials are combinatorial.

One of the exciting directions regarding applications of computers in mathematics is to use them to experimentally form new conjectures. Google’s DeepMind launched an endeavor for using machine learning (and deep learning in particular) for finding conjectures based on data. Two … Continue reading

Posted in Algebra, Combinatorics, Geometry, What is Mathematics | 8 Comments

Alef’s Corner: QED (two versions)

QED:  Version 2    

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To Cheer You Up in Difficult Times 31: Federico Ardila’s Four Axioms for Cultivating Diversity

Todos Cuentan (Everybody counts) In a beautiful NAMS 2016 article Todos Cuentan: Cultivating Diversity in Combinatorics, Federico Ardila put forward four thoughtful axioms which became a useful foundation for Ardila’s own educational and outreach efforts, and were offered as a pressing … Continue reading

Posted in Academics, Combinatorics, What is Mathematics, Women in science | Tagged , | 13 Comments

Alef’s corner: Mathematical research

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To Cheer You Up in Difficult Times 28: Math On the Beach (Alef’s Corner)

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To cheer you up in difficult times 27: A major recent “Lean” proof verification

“Lean is a functional programming language that makes it easy to write correct and maintainable code. You can also use Lean as an interactive theorem prover.” (See Lean’s homepage and see here for an introduction to lean.) Kevin Buzzard’s blog … Continue reading

Posted in Algebra, Updates, What is Mathematics | Tagged , , | 5 Comments