On 12 June, 2015 I gave a talk at the University of Melbourne, in the Moduli Spaces seminar. The talk was entitled “Geometric quantisation and calculation of A-polynomials”.
Every world in a grain of sand: John Nash’s astonishing geometry
After the recent tragic death of John Forbes Nash Jr, many tributes have been paid to this great mathematician, who was made famous by the movie “A Beautiful Mind”, and much has been said about his work on game theory. But less has been said about Nash’s other mathematical achievements.
The A-polynomial, symplectic geometry, and quantisation, May 2015
On 15 May, 2015 I gave a talk at the University of Melbourne, in the Moduli Spaces seminar. The talk was entitled “The A-polynomial, symplectic geometry, and quantisation”.
Paranoid defence controls could criminalise teaching encryption
You might not think that an academic computer science course could be classified as an export of military technology. But under the Defence Trade Controls Act – which passed into law in April, and will come into force next year – there is a real possibility that even seemingly innocuous educational and research activities could fall foul of Australian defence export control laws.
The CIA 119
Years and years on, abuses continue. Only in December 2014 did the US Senate Intelligence Committee release its summary of its report into the The CIA’s kidnapping (“rendition”) and torture programme.
It took nearly ten years after the fact for an official report to arrive.
The lower classes of things
Everything is free to move across borders, except… some lesser things, like human beings.
Why your calculator (and computer, and phone…) is a weapon
The Australian government may have classified your calculator — and phone, and computer, and every electronic device you own — as military weapons.
The Lost Art of Integration Impossibility
Integration is less a science and more an art form. It high time we shed some light on this lost art.
Contact topology and holomorphic invariants, Tokyo Feb 2015
On 18 February, 2015 I gave a talk at Tokyo Institute of Technology. The talk was entitled “Contact topology and holomorphic invariants via elementary combinatorics”. Slides are available.
Is the Victoria Police Act a step forward?
(This article also appeared on the website of the Police Accountability Project.) Law Institute Journal considers the new Victoria Police Act — a step forward? A feature article in the most recent Law Institute Journal, In Search of Certainty, examines