Marshall Bruce Mathers III (aka Eminem) has announced that he is finishing off his alter ego, Slim Shady. A highly controversial and comic creation he gave vent to what Eminem saw in everyone, though, as is perhaps inevitable, the artist gradually turned in to a grumpy old dad, moaning at what rap had become. Marshall also had his addictions and became close friends with Elton John who helped him through them.

Thu, 23 May 2024
17:00
Lecture Theatre 1, Mathematical Institute, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, OX2 6GG

Infinite Jesters: what can philosophers learn from a puzzle involving infinitely many clowns? - Ofra Magidor and Alexander Kaiserman

Ofra Magidor and Alexander Kaiserman
(University of Oxford)
Further Information

Ofra and Alexander consider a simple but intriguing mathematical argument, which purports to show how infinitely many clowns appear to have some surprising powers. They'll discuss what conclusions philosophers can and cannot draw from this case, and connect the discussion to a number of key philosophical issues such as the problem of free will and the Grandfather Paradox for time travel.

Ofra Magidor is Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at the University of Oxford and Fellow of Magdalen College. Alex Kaiserman is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford and Fairfax Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Balliol College. While they are both philosophers, Ofra holds a BSc in Philosophy, Mathematics, and Computer Science and Alex holds an MPhysPhil in Physics and Philosophy, so they are no strangers to STEM subjects.

Please email @email to register to attend in person.

The lecture will be broadcast on the Oxford Mathematics YouTube Channel on Thursday 13 June at 5-6pm and any time after (no need to register for the online version).

The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.

Tue, 21 May 2024

16:00 - 17:00
C2

Nuclear dimension of Cuntz-Krieger algebras associated with shift spaces

Sihan Wei
(University of Glasgow)
Abstract

Associated to every shift space, the Cuntz-Krieger algebra (C-K algebra for abbreviation) is an invariant of conjugacy defined and developed by K. Matsumoto, S. Eilers, T. Carlsen, and many of their collaborators in the last decade. In particular, Carlsen defined the C-K algebra to be the full groupoid C*-algebra of the “cover”, which is a topological system consisting of a surjective local homeomorphism on a zero-dimensional space induced by the shift space. 

In 2022, K. Brix proved that the C-K algebra of the Sturmian shift has finite nuclear dimension, where the Sturmian shift is the (unique) minimal shift space with the smallest complexity function: p_X(n)=n+1. In recent results (joint with Z. He), we show that for any minimal shift space with finitely many left special elements, its C-K algebra always have finite nuclear dimension. In fact, this can be further applied to the class of aperiodic shift spaces with non-superlinear growth complexity. 

Tue, 21 May 2024
13:00
L2

Scale and conformal invariance in 2-dimensional sigma models

George Papadopoulos
(King's College London)
Abstract

I shall review some aspects of the relationship between scale and conformal invariance in 2-dimensional sigma models.  Then, I shall explain how such an investigation is related to the Perelman's ideas of proving the Poincare' conjecture.  Using this, I shall demonstrate that scale invariant sigma models  with B-field coupling and  compact target space  are conformally invariant. Several examples will also be presented that elucidate the results.  The talk is based on the arXiv paper 2404.19526.

A fast iterative PDE-based algorithm for feedback controls of nonsmooth mean- field control problems
Reisinger, C Stockinger, W Zhang, Y SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing
Thu, 09 May 2024
16:00
L5

Random multiplicative functions and non-Gaussian central limit theorem

Mo Dick Wong
(University of Durham)
Abstract

There have been a lot of interests in understanding the behaviour of random multiplicative functions, which are probabilistic models for deterministic arithmetic functions such as the Möbius function and Dirichlet characters. Despite recent advances, the limiting distributions of partial sums of random multiplicative functions remain mysterious even at the conjectural level. In this talk, I shall discuss the so-called $L^2$ regime of twisted sums and provide a precise answer to the distributional problem. This is based on ongoing work with Ofir Gorodetsky.

Tue, 14 May 2024

14:00 - 15:00
L5

Deformations of q-symmetric algebras and log symplectic varieties

Travis Schedler
(Imperial College, London)
Abstract

We consider quadratic deformations of the q-symmetric algebras A_q given by x_i x_j = q_{ij} x_j x_i, for q_{ij} in C*.   We explicitly describe the Hochschild cohomology and compute the weights of the torus action (dilating the x_i variables). We describe new families of filtered deformations of A_q, which are Koszul and Calabi—Yau algebras. This also applies to abelian category deformations of coh(P^n), and for n=3 we give examples having no homogeneous coordinate ring.  We then focus on the case where n is even and the deformations are obtainable from deformation quantisation of toric log symplectic structures on P^n.  In this case we construct formally universal families of quadratic algebras deforming A_q, obtained by tensoring filtered deformations and FeiginOdesskii elliptic algebras. The universality is a consequence of a beautiful combinatorial classification of deformations via "smoothing diagrams", a collection of disjoint cycles and segments in the complete graph on n vertices, viewed as the dual complex for the coordinate hyperplanes in P^{n-1}.  Already for n=5 there are 40 of these, mostly entirely new. Our proof also applies to deformations of Poisson structures, recovering the P^n case of our previous results on general log symplectic varieties with normal crossings divisors, which motivated this project.  This is joint work with Mykola Matviichuk and Brent Pym.

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