A Brief Introduction to Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems In 1931 Kurt Gödel proved a pair of landmark results that limited the strength of formal theories of mathematics. These "incompleteness theorems" are central to modern understandings of logic, and also to numerous misunderstandings. So today, we'll explore these theorems - how they work, how they were developed […]
Title: Soap films, Plateau's laws, and the Allen-Cahn equation Abstract: Plateau's problem of minimizing area among surfaces with a common boundary is the basic model for soap films and leads to the theory of minimal surfaces. In this talk we will discuss a modification of Plateau's problem in which surfaces are replaced with regions of small […]
Title: Finite approximations as a tool for studying triangulated categories.Abstract: A metric on a category assigns lengths to morphisms, with the triangle inequality holding. This notion goes back to a 1974 article by Lawvere. We'll start with a quick review of some basic constructions, like forming the Cauchy completion of a category with respect to a metric.And […]
Title: On an application of the residue method. Abstract: When a period integral of an automorphic form converges and is not zero it is often related to a special value of an L-function and indicates that the automorphic form is a functorial transfer. When convergence fails it is still interesting to make sense of the […]