Paths: "we apologise, but it avoids writing 'induced' about 600 times"

Somewhere between the marathon chess matches, the wide-eyed tourist photography, dinner, the operas and incidental books, breakfast and tea, and talking about the aforementioned (although not at a regular or prolific rate, my readers will attest), some work gets done.

A quick update on the status of the various classes that have come to my attention. I don't remember precisely where we were last time and somehow I don't want to look it up. So, beware repetition.

• Introduction to Algebra, which induced a long discussion on the word "introduction," which along with cousins "basic," "elementary," "trivial," "easy," and so on does not seem to mean what the mathematicians think they mean. This got ditched in favour of two other classes at the same time. Same goes for Introduction to Analysis, except that it only overlapped one other class. While you're pretending to laugh at yet more ironic pedantry, let me observe that I was never taking Introduction to [Differential] Geometry, for I knew from the start that I wanted to take the other class at the same time, meaning that none of the three basic classes introduced by the department have done anything for me. Thanks for the thought, guys; fire the goobers who arranged your schedule. Moving on.


• Langlands Correspondence and Representation Theory are the two overlapping the first above. I have a hazy recollection of mentioning this along with a bit of the sentimental side.


• Algebraic Geometry, this time for real, not fake, not "introduction," not pretending to be "basic," is what induced me to let Analysis drop by the side this term. The trouble here, however, is that it's not an introductory class. Fortunately, due to a remarkable confluence of events, beginning with the fact that the class only meets once a week and ending with the professor's plane touching down an hour too late, it's been suspended for most of a month -- reconvene mid-November. I say this is fortunate because it will give me a little time to look up what all those words mean.


• Discrete math is very interesting. The instructor is a resident professor named Paul Seymour; he is doing this class for the fall and another in the spring. In each case the topic of the class is a theorem he and his various teams have proved -- "Strong Perfect Graph Conjecture" (now "Theorem") for the fall, "Graph Minors Theorem" for the spring. This is neither amok vanity nor petty parochialism. Rather it happens that this man has to his name a couple of the biggest, splashiest results in graph theory. Selah. Is this not why one goes to such a school in the first place? Just to hear this man talk is breathtaking. It's not just the rapid dictation of diagrams and arguments or the hundred-fifty-page paper sitting on the desk that constitutes his lecture notes, not that he frequently checks it. It's the chit-chat about how he used to work just on graph minors, then started on induced subgraph problems, then got a grant for his team to study Berge graphs with an eye to the Strong Perfect Graph Conjecture, spent months studying the things, proved a nice result, found out someone beat them to it by just weeks, and anyway went on to solve a major outstanding problem.

In summa, it's sunny out these days even when it's raining.