Can animals recognize symmetry? A foolish idea for a few seconds

Here is how stupid thoughts are made: I read a post by my friend Michael Kapovich about succulents that evolution made look like stones to avoid animals that might feed on them.

Lithops

My first thought was: those are just colorful, beautiful butts.

My second thought: It makes me actually wonder: from a human perspective, we immediately recognize the symmetry and see that this is not a stone. To be evolutionarily effective, that must mean that animals, for the most part, may not recognize symmetry. Antisymmetry must not have an advantage when it comes to camouflage. Which led me to find out that symmetry and its recognition is barely understood in either way, but that I may also be stupid because in real life these plants may look less symmetric. Still, maybe there is something about it.

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Angles, gherkins, polytopes and a sociological experiment

Let me start by admitting that this blog is a social experiment to see how long people take to ask me “what the fuck?” (I am kidding)

(seriously though, I am always a bit of chaos. Nothing out of the ordinary, though admittedly a bit sick and depressed at the moment. Thank you and all the love for caring y’all. Love you all 😉 )

Now, on to the other stuff: At some point in my life, I was doing my PhD and being an all around useless student (I spent most of my office computer hours watching Game of Thrones and Gossip Girl; this is not to say I did not work, but I usually cannot sit in an office chair and work. I paced around outside. Honestly I feel most time was wasted because I was anxious about seeming to work and ending up watching series rather than going out and thinking my own way), my advisor PhD Günter Ziegler and I looked at a gherkin and said: this is going to make a fine math paper. Anyway, tonight I was visited by three ghosts, and they told me a tale.

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The ballad of Max the melon

Messing around with OpenAI

Having a sick day, messing around with the OpenAI chatbot while enjoying soup.

Do you know who Mikhail Gromov is?

Yes, Mikhail Gromov is a Russian mathematician known for his work in geometry and topology. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 2010 for his contributions to the field of geometry, including his work on the structure of manifolds and the theory of groups of polynomial growth. He is currently a professor at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in Paris, France.

Do you know who Karim Adiprasito is?

Yes, Karim Adiprasito is a mathematician known for his work in algebraic and discrete geometry. He is the co-author of the book “Algebraic and Combinatorial Aspects of Tropical Geometry”, which has been recognized as a groundbreaking work in the field. Adiprasito is currently a professor at the Institute of Mathematics of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel.

Write an application letter for someone who wants to work with Karim Adiprasito as a postdoctoral researcher

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Subtlety, minimal resolutions, the value of the mystic, FromSoft, David Lynch and root polytopes

First, let me praise another excellent talk by Ayah Almousa; she presented newest work with my friend Anton Dochterman as well as Ben Smith on triangulations of root polytopes and the applications to minimal resolutions. Recall: A free resolution is a way to write a module M as a Matryoshka doll of free modules, that is, as an exact sequence

0 \rightarrow F_i \rightarrow F_{i-1} \rightarrow \cdots \rightarrow F_{1} \rightarrow M \rightarrow 0

where the F_i are free (that is, as simple as you could ever want). And whoever tried to ever studies something hard knows how valuable it is to write something in simpler terms. A minimal free resolution is just that, and a root polytope is a polytope whose vertices correspond to the root directions of a Coxeter group. Ayah surveyed how triangulations of the latter are related to resolutions of monomial ideals, and applied this to prove some new results as well as give more insightful proofs to previously known ones. Bravo, Ayah, Anton and Ben! Here is her talk.

Now to more serious business. Real serious.

Overall maidenless behaviour
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Nokron

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

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

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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Many more than seven veils

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.