Tag Archives: math

Review: Theory of Probability and Random Processes

Posted on by Thibauld

Theory of Probability and Random Processes
L. Koralov, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA; Y.G. Sinai, Princeton University, NJ, USA

It took me half an eternity but I eventually finished the book “Theory of Probability and Random Processes”.

I initially intended to read it both as a refresher and as a warm up to read a couple of higher level books. And it was indeed an interesting read, though, I must admit, more difficult than I thought.

The obvious shortcoming of this book should be clear for any people having been to university: it is aknowledged as being based on a course… and I reckon it’s reminiscent of those handouts you get when the teachers consider the pedagogy’s place to be in the classroom only1. Fair enough for Springer’s “Universitext” collection.
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  1. rest assured it’s not handwritten, LaTeX has at least saved us from that [↩]

They call me “geometric algebra”

Posted on by Thibauld

According to the Springer GTM test I’m algebraic geometry. TO be honest that’s a pretty good guess for such a short test.

If I were a Springer-Verlag Graduate Text in Mathematics, I would be Robin Hartshorne’s Algebraic Geometry.

My creator studied algebraic geometry with Oscar Zariski and David Mumford at Harvard, and with J.-P. Serre and A. Grothendieck in Paris. After receiving his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1963, he became a Junior Fellow at Harvard, then taught there for several years. In 1972 he moved to California where he is now Professor at the University of California at Berkeley. My siblings include “Residues and Duality” (1966), “Foundations of Projective Geometry (1968), “Ample Subvarieties of Algebraic Varieties” (1970), and numerous research titles. My creator’s current research interest is the geometry of projective varieties and vector bundles. He has been a visiting professor at the College de France and at Kyoto University, where he gave lectures in French and in Japanese, respectively.

My creator is married to Edie Churchill, educator and psychotherapist, and has two human sons and one daughter. He has travelled widely, speaks several foreign languages, and is an experienced mountain climber. He is also an accomplished musician, playing flute, piano, and traditional Japanese music on the shakuhachi.

Which Springer GTM would you be? The Springer GTM Test

Via this blog.

Les origamis par les maths

Posted on by Thibauld

ok c’est sans doute pas d’une grande nouveauté ( la vidéo elle-même date du début 2008), mais c’est plutôt bien illustré et assez typique de la démarche des maths:

  1. un gars trouve un loisir sympa qui le fait bien marrer (ici les origamis)
  2. un mathématicien passe par là, lui chope l’idée et en fait un truc prise de tête (“ton super jeux là c’est un problème d’empaquetage de cercles sur une variété d’ordre deux, trop fort…”)
  3. avec ses potes informaticiens il en fait un truc chiant à mourir du genre “trop génial tu rentre 72 paramètes, t’appuie sur 50 boutons et l’ordi te fait le pliage tout seul”… sympa, merci
  4. finalement le truc chiant se transforme en quelque chose d’utile (en médecine par exemple) et peux même contribuer à nous faire rêver (dans l’exploration spatiale typiquement)

Moi j’trouve ça chouette ! Pas vous ? Ah bon…