Mathematics | Chris Aldrich: Recent Episodes
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Dr. Mike Miller announced in class last night that in the coming Winter quarter at UCLA Extension he’ll be offering a course on elliptic curves.
The text for the class will be Rational Points on Elliptic Curves (Springer, Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics) by Joseph H. Silverman and John T. Tate. He expects to follow and rely more on it versus handing out his own specific lecture notes.
He mentioned that while it would suggest a more geometric flavor, which it will certainly have, the class will carry an interesting algebraic component which those not familiar with the topic may not expect.
To register, look for the listing sometime in the coming month or so when the Winter catalog is released.
Bookmarked Topics in Ring Theory and Modules by Michael Miller (UCLA Extension)
Topics to be discussed include the isomorphism theorems; ascending and descending chain conditions; prime and maximal ideals; free, simple, and semi-simple modules; the Jacobson radical; and the Wedderburn-Artin Theorem.
Ring theory is a branch of abstract algebra that deals with sets—for example, the collection of all integers—that admit both additive and multiplicative operations. Modules generalize the notion of vector spaces, but with scalars drawn from a ring rather than a field. Beginning with a survey of the basic notions of rings and ideals, the course explores some of the elegant algebraic structuring that defines the behavior of rings—both commutative and non-commutative—and their associated modules. Topics to be discussed include the isomorphism theorems; ascending and descending chain conditions; prime and maximal ideals; free, simple, and semi-simple modules; the Jacobson radical; and the Wedderburn-Artin Theorem. Theory will be motivated by numerous examples drawn from familiar realms of number theory, linear algebra, and real analysis.
Mike Miller has announced this fall’s math course at UCLA.
Quantum mechanics anyone? Dozens have been disappointed by UCLA’s administration ineptly standing in the way of Dr. Mike Miller being able to offer his perennial Winter UCLA math class (Ring Theory this quarter), so a few friends and I are putting our informal math and physics group back together.
We’re mounting a study group on quantum mechanics based on Peter Woit‘s Introduction to Quantum Mechanics course from 2022. We’ll be using his textbook Quantum Theory, Groups and Representations:An Introduction (free, downloadable .pdf) and his lectures from YouTube.
Shortly, we’ll arrange a schedule and some zoom video calls to discuss the material. If you’d like to join us, send me your email or leave a comment so we can arrange meetings (likely via Zoom or similar video conferencing).
Our goal is to be informal, have some fun, but learn something along the way. The suggested mathematical background is some multi-variable calculus and linear algebra. Many of us already have some background in Lie groups, algebras, and representation theory and can hopefully provide some help for those who are interested in expanding their math and physics backgrounds.
Everyone is welcome!
Are you a math person looking for an interesting space on Mastodon? Try https://mathstodon.xyz/about
Dr. Miller mentioned in class tonight that his Winter quarter math class at UCLA will be on ring theory. Prepare yourself to commute (or not).
For the Fall 2022 offering Dr. Michael Miller is offering a mathematics course on Theory and Applications of Continued Fractions at UCLA on Tuesday nights through December 6th. We started the first class last night, but there have been issues with the course listing on UCLA Extension, so I thought I’d post here for any … Continue reading Theory and Applications of Continued Fractions MATH X 451.50 | Fall 2022
I just couldn’t wait for a physical copy of The First Astronomers: How Indigenous Elders Read the Stars by Duane Hamacher, Ghillar Michael Anderson, Ron Day, Segar Passi, Alo Tapim, David Bosun and John Barsa (Allen & Unwin, 2022) to arrive in the US, so I immediately downloaded a copy of the e-book version. @AllenAndUnwin @AboriginalAstro
@brunowinck @codexeditor @alanlaidlaw When thinking about this, recall that in the second paragraph of The Mathematical Theory of Communication (University of Illinois Press, 1949), Claude Shannon explicitly separates the semantic meaning from the engineering problem of communication.
@UCLAExtension I know a follow up course to the first half of Differential Topology is being offered for Winter 2022, but it doesn’t seem to be on the site yet to register. Can someone fix this? https://www.uclaextension.edu/sciences-math/math-statistics/course/introduction-differential-topology-math-x-45148
It hasn’t been announced officially in the UCLA Extension catalog, but Dr. Mike Miller’s anticipated course topic for Fall 2021 is differential topology. The anticipated recommended text is Differential Topology: An Introduction by David B. Gauld (M. Dekker, 1982 or Dover, 1996 (reprint)). The offering is naturally dependent on potential public health measures in September, … Continue reading Differential Topology—Two quarter sequence at UCLA Extension for Fall/Winter 2021
So far, my favorite part of Jordan Ellenberg‘s new book Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else is this footnoted observation: “we hold these truths to be self-evident” wasn’t Jefferson’s line; his first draft of the Declaration has “we hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable.” It was Ben Franklin who scratched out those … Continue reading An Euclidean Declaration
Evie (taunting me to tuck her in before she gets to 15): …, 9-Mississippi, 10-Mississippi, 11-Mississippi, … Me: We don’t Mississippi in this house! Maybe we should Tennessee since that’s where Grandma and Grandpa live? Evie: I’ve Mississippi’ed since I was three. Me: Maybe since we’re Welsh we should Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch? You know: 1-Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, 2-Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, … … Continue reading
I know I’ve read this before. This is a good reminder to re-read it occasionally. ᔥ John Keilman on Twitter: “@rachsyme This one. It makes math make sense in a way nothing else has. https://t.co/VWST1TiQAZ”
Backlinks in digital gardens, commonplace books, or wikis are just an abstract extension of the accounting concept of double-entry bookkeeping.
I was thinking about logic a bit this evening and looked up an old professor. Saddened to hear he’s passed away.
↬ Kevin Marks retweet (2020-12-15) of ↬ Simon Wardley @swardley in Simon Wardley on Twitter: “Anyway, this is a fabulous paper – The ergodicity problem in economics – https://t.co/fzS3toWvT5 … well worth the read.” / Twitter (2020-12-15 04:12)
It’s supremely sad that a paper in Nature should “math shame” ergodic theory this way. What the hell is going on?
This, but also and specifically for mathematics! We need to normalize the idea that math is easy.
Hello fellow mathematician! There are lots of ways to syndicate content, some dependent on which platform(s) you’re using and where you’re syndicating to/from. Your best bet is to swing by the IndieWeb Dev chat and ask that very question. Theorem: Syndication is easy. Proof: “It’s easy to show” (I’m waving my hands here) that there … Continue reading
I’ve read this same sort of article in other venues in the past, but closer to the revival of the company. This seems to have cropped up again because the original owner of the Japanese company has passed away in the last month.
Maybe if we banned more math books it might help popularize them? I like that he discusses how he felt that he approached math from a philosophical perspective.
I’ve seen many tweets today with the hashtag #shutdownSTEM. Some of them included some people asking why such a thing would be necessary. What does STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) have to do with racism they ask? I find myself seeing some immediate and excellent historical examples in Dr. Ibram X. Kendi‘s book Stamped … Continue reading A Short Essay on the Relationship of STEM and Racist Ideas
there’s nothing like knowing that you’re going to have to justify your decision to a bunch of mathematicians. ❧ Annotated on May 20, 2020 at 10:05AM
No doubt many have already seen that Springer has released about 500 books for free during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Springer, these textbooks will be available free of charge until at least the end of July. A bit of Googling will reveal people who’ve already written some code to quickly download them all in … Continue reading
Read John Horton Conway, a ‘Magical Genius’ in Math, Dies at 82 (nytimes.com)
He made profound contributions to number theory, coding theory, probability theory, topology, algebra and more — and created games from it all. He died of the coronavirus.
Liked a tweet by Tai-Danae Bradley (@math3ma) (Twitter)
My PhD thesis “At the Interface of Algebra and Statistics” is now on the arXiv! https://t.co/7IwEu8wqQC It uses basic tools in quantum physics to explore mathematical structure that's both algebraic & statistical. Curious? See my new 10m video on YouTube!! https://t.co/zOtBtGeQVK pic.twitter.com/U8X622mtse
— Tai-Danae Bradley (@math3ma) April 14, 2020