Posts with this logo use 
December 3, 2022
Neutrino Dark Matter
Posted by John Baez
I talked to Neil Turok at a café today. He used to be the head of the Perimeter Institute, but now he’s at the University of Edinburgh.
He coauthored a paper arguing that dark matter is very heavy right-handed neutrinos:
- Latham Boyle, Kieran Finn and Neil Turok, The Big Bang, CPT, and neutrino dark matter.
It’s very natural to add right-handed neutrinos to the Standard Model, and if they’re heavy they can make the observed left-handed neutrinos light via the ‘see-saw mechanism’. The problem is to keep them from decaying too fast!
November 29, 2022
Last Seminar on This Week’s Finds
Posted by John Baez
On Thursday December 2nd I gave the last of this year’s seminars on This Week’s Finds. You can see videos of all ten here. I will continue in September 2023.
In my last one, I spoke about Dyson’s ‘three-fold way’: the way the real numbers, complex numbers and quaternions interact in representation theory and quantum mechanics. For details, try my paper Division algebras and quantum theory.
One cute fact is how an electron is like a quaternion! More precisely: how quaternions show up in the spin-1/2 representation of SU(2) on ℂ².
Let me say a little about that here.
November 27, 2022
Mathematics for Humanity
Posted by John Baez
I’m working with an organization that may eventually fund proposals to fund workshops for research groups working on “mathematics for humanity”. This would include math related to climate change, health, democracy, economics, etc.
I can’t give details unless and until it solidifies.
However, it would help me to know a bunch of possible good proposals. Can you help me imagine some?
A good proposal needs:
a clearly well-defined subject where mathematics is already helping humanity but could help more, together with
a specific group of people who already have a track record of doing good work on this subject, and
some evidence that having a workshop, maybe as long as 3 months, bringing together this group and other people, would help them do good things.
I’m saying this because I don’t want vague ideas like “oh it would be cool if a bunch of category theorists could figure out how to make social media better”.
November 22, 2022
Inner Automorphisms of the Octonions
Posted by John Baez
What are the inner automorphisms of the octonions?
November 16, 2022
The Icosidodecahedron
Posted by John Baez
The icosidodecahedron can be built by truncating either a regular icosahedron or a regular dodecahedron. It has 30 vertices, one at the center of each edge of the icosahedron—or equivalently, one at the center of each edge of a dodecahedron. It is a beautiful, highly symmetrical shape. But it is just a shadow of a more symmetrical shape with twice as many vertices, which lives in a space with twice as many dimensions! Namely, it is a projection down to 3d space of a 6-dimensional polytope with 60 vertices.
Even better, it is also a slice of a more symmetrical 4d polytope with 120 vertices, which in turn is the projection down to 4d space of an even more symmetrical 8-dimensional polytope with 240 vertices: the so-called ‘E8 root polytope’.
Note how the numbers keep doubling: 30, 60, 120 and 240.
November 1, 2022
Categories and Epidemiology
Posted by John Baez
I gave a talk about my work using category theory to help design software for epidemic modeling:
• Category theory and epidemiology, African Mathematics Seminar, Wednesday November 2, 2022, 3 pm Nairobi time or noon UTC. Organized by Layla Sorkatti and Jared Ongaro.
This talk is a lot less technical than previous ones I’ve given on this subject, which were aimed mainly at category theorists. You can watch it on YouTube.
October 25, 2022
Booleans, Natural Numbers, Young Diagrams, Schur Functors
Posted by John Baez
There’s an adjunction between commutative monoids and pointed sets, which gives a comonad. Then:
Take the booleans, apply the comonad and get the natural numbers.
Take the natural numbers, apply the comonad and get Young diagrams.
Take the Young diagrams, apply the comonad and get Schur functors.
Let me explain how this works!
October 16, 2022
Partition Function as Cardinality
Posted by John Baez
In classical statistical mechanics we often think about sets where each point has a number called its ‘energy’. Then the ‘partition function’ counts the set’s points — but points with large energy count for less! And the amount each point gets counted depends on the temperature.
So, the partition function is a generalization of the cardinality that works for sets equipped with a function . I’ve been talking with Tom Leinster about this lately, so let me say a bit more about how it works.
October 11, 2022
Two Talks on Measuring Diversity
Posted by Tom Leinster
Later this month, I’ll give a pair of lectures at Riken, the major research institute in Japan, at the kind invitation of Ryosuke Iratani.
Both lectures will be on measuring diversity, and the aim is to touch on some biological and information theory aspects as well as the mathematics. Titles, abstracts and dates follow. You can attend online (and I’ll be speaking online too), but Ryo asks that you fill in the registration form.
October 7, 2022
The Eventual Image, Eventually
Posted by Tom Leinster
More than ten years ago, I wrote a series of posts (1, 2, 3) about what happens when you iterate a process for an infinite amount of time. I know just how that feels: it’s taken me until now to finish writing it up. But finally, it’s done:
Tom Leinster, The eventual image. arXiv:2210.00302, 2022.
What is the eventual image? I’ll tell you in nine ways.
October 5, 2022
CWRU Is Hiring
Posted by Tom Leinster
Guest post by Nick Gurski and Mark Meckes
The Department of Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, and Statistics at Case Western Reserve University is hiring a tenure-track assistant professor in pure math, to start in fall 2023. Preference will be given to candidates in algebra, topology, and related areas, although excellent candidates in all areas of pure mathematics will be considered.
At CWRU, patrons of the -Category Café may be familiar with not only our names, Nick Gurski and Mark Meckes, but also our colleagues Juan Orendain (Math, Applied Math and Statistics) and Colin McLarty (Philosophy).
Applications are through MathJobs, where you can see the full ad. Questions can be emailed to Nick (nick.gurski@case.edu), who is chairing the search committee.
September 16, 2022
Young Diagrams and Classical Groups
Posted by John Baez
Young diagrams can be used to classify an enormous number of things. My first one or two This Week’s Finds seminars will be on Young diagrams and classical groups. Here are some lecture notes:
• Young diagrams and classical groups.
I probably won’t cover all this material in the seminar. The most important part is the stuff up to and including the classification of irreducible representations of the “classical monoid” . (People don’t talk about classical monoids, but they should.)
Just as a reminder: my talks will be on Thursdays at 3:00 pm UK time in Room 6206 of the James Clerk Maxwell Building at the University of Edinburgh. The first will be on September 22nd, and the last on December 1st.
If you’re actually in town, there’s a tea on the fifth floor that starts 15 minutes before my talk. If you’re not, you can attend on Zoom:
https://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/82270325098
Meeting ID: 822 7032 5098
Passcode: XXXXXX36
Here the X’s stand for the name of a famous lemma in category theory.
September 12, 2022
The Algebra of Grand Unified Theories
Posted by John Baez
Fans of the -Category Café might like The Cartesian Café, where Timothy Nguyen has long, detailed conversations with mathematicians. We recently talked about the fascinating mathematical patterns in the Standard Model that led people to invent grand unified theories:
For more details, go here:
- John Baez and John Huerta, The algebra of grand unified theories, Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 47 (2010), 483–552.
September 11, 2022
Seminar on This Week’s Finds
Posted by John Baez
Here’s something new: I’m living in Edinburgh until January! I’ll be working with Tom Leinster at the University of Edinburgh, supported by a Leverhulme Fellowship.
One fun thing I’ll be doing is running seminars on some topics from my column This Week’s Finds. They’ll take place on Thursdays at 3:00 pm UK time in Room 6206 of James Clerk Maxwell Building, home of the Department of Mathematics. The first will be on September 22nd, and the last on December 1st.
We’re planning to
1) make the talks hybrid on Zoom so that people can participate online:
https://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/82270325098
Meeting ID: 822 7032 5098
Passcode: XXXXXX36
Here the X’s stand for the name of a famous lemma in category theory.
2) record them and eventually make them publicly available on my YouTube channel.
3) have a Zulip channel on the Category Theory Community Server dedicated to discussion of the seminars: it’s here.
More details soon!
I have the topics planned out….
August 24, 2022
Joint Mathematics Meetings 2023
Posted by John Baez
This is the biggest annual meeting of mathematicians:
- Joint Mathematical Meetings 2023, Wednesday January 4 - Saturday January 7, 2023, John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center, Boston Marriott Hotel, and Boston Sheraton Hotel, Boston, Massachusetts.
As part of this huge meeting, the American Mathematical Society is having a special session on Applied Category Theory on Thursday January 5th.
I hear there will be talks by Eugenia Cheng and Olivia Caramello!