I gave an outreach talk to secondary students at PLC about mathematics and mathematicians, talking about, among other things, topology, Maryam Mirzakhani, and billiards, in July 2017. Slides are available.
At least mathematics is commendable
The Australian government announced a proposal to force tech companies to provide government agencies with the contents of encrypted communications.
Holy h-principle, Batman!
In which I attempt to explain some of the ideas behind the h-principle.
Morse structures on partial open books with extendable monodromy
Joint with Joan Licata.
We extend the notion of Morse structure on an open book to extendable partial open books in order to study contact 3-manifolds with convex boundary.
Eighty years ago, Spanish people responded to the far right with social revolution
Eighty years ago to the day, the far right was in its ascendancy, and still rising. Hitler was in complete control of Germany, Mussolini had been in charge of a police state in Italy for a decade. But a little to the southwest, in Spain, war had already broken out.
Mathematics, mathematicians, philosophy
In December 2016 I gave a talk to secondary school students about mathematics and mathematical philosophy.
AustMS talk, December 2016
On 6 December, 2016, I gave a talk at the Austrlaian Mathematical Society Annual Meeting at ANU, Canberra. The talk was entitled “Strand algebras and contact categories”. Slides from the talk are available.
What to do while Rome burns
From Russell’s Principles of Social Reconstruction (1916).
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Donald Trump
On the Eighteenth Brumaire (9 November) 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in France. Louis Napoleon did the same in 1851. First as tragedy, then as farce. Tragedy and farce and much more — with vastly greater consequences — have taken place on the Eighteenth Brumaire 2016.
Talks at Low-dimensional topology workshop, Oct-Nov 2016
In October-November 2016 I gave two talks at the MSI Workshop on Low-Dimensional Topology & Quantum Algebra at ANU, Canberra. Some slides are available.