I’ve come across an interesting weblog devoted to the philosophy of mathematics: Philosophy of Real Mathematics, by David Corfield.
Doubly Special Relativity
Physicists are developing an alternative to special relativity, called Doubly Special Relativity. (When the Wikipedia article for this first appeared, people were so sure that the name had to be a joke that the article was nominated for deletion.) Doubly special relativity, which currently is somewhere in between an idea and an actual full-fledged theory, depends on two parameters, the speed of light and the Planck mass (this puts the two in “doubly”). For an introduction, see Introduction to Doubly Special Relativity by Jerzy Kowalski-Glikman.
Weekend discussion
Mathematical skills and aptitude are best examined by oral examinations, not written ones. Discuss.
Jobs for quant jocks
according to Business Week.
US law uses a euclidean metric
according to a report in the latest PLUS e-magazine.
Keisler on infinitesimals
H. Jerome Keisler has made freely available his calculus textbook, Elementary Calculus: An Approach Using Infinitesimals. The book is based on Abraham Robinson’s rigorous foundations for infinitesimals.
In Passing
I realize that I have been a bit out of touch recently, but I feel ashamed that I just realized that my mathematical great-grand parent Raul Bott passed away Dec 20th.
Open threads?
I thought as an experiment I would put up an open thread. Feel free to discuss the hardness of math, or whatever else is on your mind.
The Meaning of Einstein’s Equation
John Baez and Emory Bunn have written a freakishly simple introduction to general relativity, The Meaning of Einstein’s Equation. Baez also now hosts Chris Hillman’s link site, Relativity on the World Wide Web
Connes interview
For anyone who finds the Connes-Marcolli paper we recently linked to heavy going, Lieven Le Bruyn recommends some lighter reading: an interview with Alain Connes himself from the conference in Tehran where the paper was presented. In the interview Connes talks about physics and noncommutative geometry. He also has some sharp criticisms with how mathematics research works in the United States in comparison to France (where he lives and works).
Peter Woit also discussed this interview a couple of weeks back.