Author: Karim Adiprasito

Nokron

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None of these people are me, obviously.

“Housekeeping” a drilling, broken voice shrieked.

“You do the dishes, we do the squishes”

I was just enjoying the architecture of the bathroom. A bidet next to the toilet, opposing each other. No doubt useful to some insane architect. Not that I had anything to do here, my insides a burning mess, but empty now.

“Housekeeping” the voice, a second time. I do not know why he chose that part of the password as I realized I was wrong, and hurled away more of whatever little my stomach contained.

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A fact and a consequence

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I am currently visiting my friend Paco Santos in Santander, Cantabria, and things are off to a rocky start. As I enter his office, he challenges me to a duel.

“I hold a theorem” he says. And after thinking for a few seconds, he adds: “I am also holding a corollary about symmetries”

I am stumped. It is early, and I lack the mental fortitude of morning coffee. I have to think…

The answer: the vertices of the dodecahedron can be partitioned into 5 regular tetrahedra (these are the green diagonals).

Now, you can use this fact to compute the group of symmetries of the dodecahedron! Well, clearly you can take the vertices of one of the tetrahedra to itself. That is the alternating group A_4. But you can also take any tetrahedron to any other tetrahedron, leading to conjugate copies of the same group. Those are 5 copies. Hence, what you obtain finally is the alternating group A_5.

Oysters, cold bathroom floors, subversive energy and other things close to my heart

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As I still suffer from the aftermath of that oyster adventure (or i got something more chronic, who knows) let me ask a question to my friends with the more useful variant of a doctor title: where do I get an adult sized incubator? A refurbished iron lung, perhaps. Something snuggly and warm.

While we are at it, can we all agree to make bathroom floors warm? Seems like a design flaw in that moment when there is not enough strength to remove ones head from the porcelain throne and crawl away. Not that I would not have been back every few minutes.

Also: My research group does incredible work. But some moments make me more proud than others. Like when they inherit just a little criminal energy. Standing at an airport, having to switch my sim card, I had to think of that wise council one of them gave me: go to the jeweler, and pretend to try out earrings. Those little pins are damned useful to get that tiny compartment open.

Love you all. Incredibly proud. Next I am going to teach you about Igusa zeta functions and how to topple a government using cherry-flavored cupcakes, a ballpoint pen and peppermint schnapps. But first something about stringy cohomology! 🥰🍒🖊🥃❤️

Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Kustin-Miller unprojection, degree maps and post-nuclear relationships of the future

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Dear Diary,

yesterday I heard an amazing talk by Eva Philippe and I will get back to that, as well as related questions I am thinking about with Sergey Avvakumov (who is on the market btw., though I do not expect trouble there cause he is doing great things) and Mark Berezovik (who I got to Jerusalem to finish his masters in exile. Study in exile. Interesting that we do that again).


Anyway, dear diary, it reminded me of something many years in the future.

You see, in 35 years I am going to sit my second grandchild on my lap. The bright one. She was always the bright one. So many questions.

And so, after helping my first, my grandson, build a gauntlet for the mutated squirrel warriors, I will sit her down. Spit the iodine tablet into the bucket and sigh, thinking about the best advice. She is starting to get interested in relationships, and she is asking me.

“Grandpa, I want to ask about pairings”

she begins, and my bioengineered squidheart sinks. Not that one.

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Inspiration in abstract science, metric spaces of metric spaces and stability of numerical algorithms

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Two revelations from yesterday. First, my anonymous friend M (don’t want them to get pestered with inquiries yet) gave me a draft of a novel so delightfully full of cool ideas that I could not reading even as I was driven along a serpentine mountain road. The revelation, apart from the obvious conviction of their genius, was that my stomach could not handle it and I felt like hurling the contents of a fine dinner over the beautiful scenery. Though really I should have known that from experience. Sidepoint: we are watching DEVS nos, which apart from hammering metaphors in with a sledgehammer, is not bad.

Nick gets it.

Second was that I kept thinking about a friendly interrogation that Stephen Yang of this post conducted on me, asking me to what extent we incorporate the real world experience in abstract science, or whether we are completely removed from it. (I also invited him to Jerusalem almost immediately, looking forward to your visit!)

I had two immediate answers for him: One is indirect, in that nature (in the sense of everything not inside the mind, so maybe the outside world would be a better term), at least for me, acts as cleaning current, flushing out the noise of repetitive thoughts that accumulate in creative thinking by overwhelming the senses.

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Many more than seven veils

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As there is a short break in the opera and Jochanaan may have a brief chance to leave the building with his head where it belongs, I reflected on the final report for my first ERC grant I submitted recently. I felt a sentiment of immense pride when wading through the collected works, amazed at the diversity and depth of ideas and results that my group members produced, ranging over different areas so beautifully that I had trouble summarizing them. From entropy and secret sharing (I already mentioned this) over spectra of groups to combinatorics of manifolds, from embeddings and simplicial depth and Lefschetz to resolution of singularities, I probably forgot most of it. I think I will have to devote more posts to what resulted, and to ongoing projects still rippling forth from it.

That said, very proud to have had the opportunity to work with all of you! And excited to see what comes next.

Just an appreciation of art: Stephen Yang add Alef’s Corner

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Three artist friends I wanted to appreciate here. I lack the words of a smarter (wo)man, so I will let the images and links speak for themselves. First Stephen Yang who makes me impatient for my travel to the east coast. Most of his photographs depict the miracle that is New York (though he also captured Henry Kissinger and Tahrir Square), although the city being the city, it could just be any part of the world and none at the same time.

J’Ouvert celebrations in Brooklyn

Second, there is a secret friend of mine who is more shy about his identity. Depicting another friend of mine who is not so secret about his identity.

Kabelsalat, Schoolification, science education, flattening PL maps and Ronly Honly Bing

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First bullet point: There is an interesting analysis of the secret deals that led to the war in Ukraine at the moment by the New York Times, as well as an account of the Trump administration involvement.

This post is brought to you by the letter A for anger issues, and the failed attempt to find an HDMI cable. Why is it that usually there are enough of them to choke two species into extinction, rid Paris of her rat-issues and still have enough for the Praelatura Sanctae Crucis et Operis Dei to flagellate themselves biweekly, but now I cannot find a single one.

Second: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Ok, I am being overdramatic; though if I was talking about the level of paranoia this country sometimes presents when faced with youth whose skin is not piggy-pink, that could well be appropriate.

I am also not referring to royal family affairs and the queen’s dental care.

Also, the issue is not really restricted to Denmark. I just really wanted to quote Marcellus.

What I am referring to is an increasing effort to make university a school. And as someone who hated school, let me say:

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The Medici bitch and quantifications in commutative algebra

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As forces and probabilities greater than I decide my location in the next 48 hours, let me briefly profess my love for Samantha Morton as Serpent Queen. It is beautiful to watch a sly smile creep across her lips as schemes come to fruition, and perhaps more importantly, how hardships are quickly incorporated into yet another scheme.

Isn’t it nice to scheme in France. Muhahaha

Indeed, isn’t it most interesting when things fail? When we invariably hit our nose, the rock rolls down the hill again. For we can scheme how to roll it up next time. Blood in the streets and all that.

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