A knot is said to be slice if it bounds a smooth disk in the 4-ball. For 50 years, it was unknown whether a certain 11 crossing knot, called the Conway knot, was slice or not, and until recently, this was the only one of the thousands of knots with fewer than 13 crossings whose slice-status remained a mystery. We will describe Lisa Piccirillo's proof that the Conway knot is not slice. The main idea of her proof is given in the title of this article.
{"title":"Getting a handle on the Conway knot","authors":"Jennifer Hom","doi":"10.1090/bull/1745","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1090/bull/1745","url":null,"abstract":"A knot is said to be slice if it bounds a smooth disk in the 4-ball. For 50 years, it was unknown whether a certain 11 crossing knot, called the Conway knot, was slice or not, and until recently, this was the only one of the thousands of knots with fewer than 13 crossings whose slice-status remained a mystery. We will describe Lisa Piccirillo's proof that the Conway knot is not slice. The main idea of her proof is given in the title of this article.","PeriodicalId":9513,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44351700","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In 1960 algebraic topology was at the centre of the mathematical stage, but Michael Atiyah burst into the field and changed its focus and its language. I describe his work of the following decade and its influence, keeping to the themes of K K -theory and generalized cohomology to minimise the overlap with Dan Freed’s account of Atiyah’s work on index theory, which also appears in this issue.
{"title":"Michael Atiyah’s work in algebraic topology","authors":"G. Segal","doi":"10.1090/BULL/1746","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1090/BULL/1746","url":null,"abstract":"In 1960 algebraic topology was at the centre of the mathematical stage, but Michael Atiyah burst into the field and changed its focus and its language. I describe his work of the following decade and its influence, keeping to the themes of \u0000\u0000 \u0000 K\u0000 K\u0000 \u0000\u0000-theory and generalized cohomology to minimise the overlap with Dan Freed’s account of Atiyah’s work on index theory, which also appears in this issue.","PeriodicalId":9513,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46287941","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Group actions in ergodic theory, geometry, and topology: Selected papers","authors":"David Kerr","doi":"10.1090/BULL/1741","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1090/BULL/1741","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":9513,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48455671","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Wigner-type theorems for Hilbert Grassmannians","authors":"G. P. Gehér","doi":"10.1090/bull/1743","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1090/bull/1743","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":9513,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49566937","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Daniel Glasscock, Andreas Koutsogiannis, F. Richter
Katznelson’s Question is a long-standing open question concerning recurrence in topological dynamics with strong historical and mathematical ties to open problems in combinatorics and harmonic analysis. In this article, we give a positive answer to Katznelson’s Question for certain towers of skew-product extensions of equicontinuous systems, including systems of the form ( x , t ) ↦ ( x + α , t + h ( x ) ) (x,t) mapsto (x + alpha , t + h(x)) . We describe which frequencies must be controlled for in order to ensure recurrence in such systems, and we derive combinatorial corollaries concerning the difference sets of syndetic subsets of the natural numbers.
{"title":"On Katznelson’s Question for skew-product systems","authors":"Daniel Glasscock, Andreas Koutsogiannis, F. Richter","doi":"10.1090/bull/1764","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1090/bull/1764","url":null,"abstract":"Katznelson’s Question is a long-standing open question concerning recurrence in topological dynamics with strong historical and mathematical ties to open problems in combinatorics and harmonic analysis. In this article, we give a positive answer to Katznelson’s Question for certain towers of skew-product extensions of equicontinuous systems, including systems of the form \u0000\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 (\u0000 x\u0000 ,\u0000 t\u0000 )\u0000 ↦\u0000 (\u0000 x\u0000 +\u0000 α\u0000 ,\u0000 t\u0000 +\u0000 h\u0000 (\u0000 x\u0000 )\u0000 )\u0000 \u0000 (x,t) mapsto (x + alpha , t + h(x))\u0000 \u0000\u0000. We describe which frequencies must be controlled for in order to ensure recurrence in such systems, and we derive combinatorial corollaries concerning the difference sets of syndetic subsets of the natural numbers.","PeriodicalId":9513,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47938623","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Invitation to partial differential equations","authors":"Y. Pinchover","doi":"10.1090/bull/1742","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1090/bull/1742","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":9513,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60549727","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Extrinsic geometric flows","authors":"L. Ni","doi":"10.1090/bull/1740","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1090/bull/1740","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":9513,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46478479","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Hardy uncertainty principle says that no function is better localized together with its Fourier transform than the Gaussian. The textbook proof of the result, as well as one of the original proofs by Hardy, refers to the Phragmén–Lindelöf theorem. In this note we first describe the connection of the Hardy uncertainty to the Schrödinger equation, and give a new proof of Hardy’s result which is based on this connection and the Liouville theorem. The proof is related to the second proof of Hardy, which has been undeservedly forgotten. Then we survey the recent results on dynamical versions of Hardy’s theorem.
{"title":"Dynamical versions of Hardy’s uncertainty principle: A survey","authors":"Aingeru Fernández-Bertolin, E. Malinnikova","doi":"10.1090/bull/1729","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1090/bull/1729","url":null,"abstract":"The Hardy uncertainty principle says that no function is better localized together with its Fourier transform than the Gaussian. The textbook proof of the result, as well as one of the original proofs by Hardy, refers to the Phragmén–Lindelöf theorem. In this note we first describe the connection of the Hardy uncertainty to the Schrödinger equation, and give a new proof of Hardy’s result which is based on this connection and the Liouville theorem. The proof is related to the second proof of Hardy, which has been undeservedly forgotten. Then we survey the recent results on dynamical versions of Hardy’s theorem.","PeriodicalId":9513,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47301777","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The remarkable range of biological forms in and around us, such as the undulating shape of a leaf or flower in the garden, the coils in our gut, or the folds in our brain, raise a number of questions at the interface of biology, physics, and mathematics. How might these shapes be predicted, and how can they eventually be designed? We review our current understanding of this problem, which brings together analysis, geometry, and mechanics in the description of the morphogenesis of low-dimensional objects. Starting from the view that shape is the consequence of metric frustration in an ambient space, we examine the links between the classical Nash embedding problem and biological morphogenesis. Then, motivated by a range of experimental observations and numerical computations, we revisit known rigorous results on curvature-driven patterning of thin elastic films, especially the asymptotic behaviors of the solutions as the (scaled) thickness becomes vanishingly small and the local curvature can become large. Along the way, we discuss open problems that include those in mathematical modeling and analysis along with questions driven by the allure of being able to tame soft surfaces for applications in science and engineering.
{"title":"Geometry, analysis, and morphogenesis: Problems and prospects","authors":"M. Lewicka, L. Mahadevan","doi":"10.1090/bull/1765","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1090/bull/1765","url":null,"abstract":"The remarkable range of biological forms in and around us, such as the undulating shape of a leaf or flower in the garden, the coils in our gut, or the folds in our brain, raise a number of questions at the interface of biology, physics, and mathematics. How might these shapes be predicted, and how can they eventually be designed? We review our current understanding of this problem, which brings together analysis, geometry, and mechanics in the description of the morphogenesis of low-dimensional objects. Starting from the view that shape is the consequence of metric frustration in an ambient space, we examine the links between the classical Nash embedding problem and biological morphogenesis. Then, motivated by a range of experimental observations and numerical computations, we revisit known rigorous results on curvature-driven patterning of thin elastic films, especially the asymptotic behaviors of the solutions as the (scaled) thickness becomes vanishingly small and the local curvature can become large. Along the way, we discuss open problems that include those in mathematical modeling and analysis along with questions driven by the allure of being able to tame soft surfaces for applications in science and engineering.","PeriodicalId":9513,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41499695","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"In Memoriam: John H. Conway","authors":"M. Broué","doi":"10.1090/BULL/1702","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1090/BULL/1702","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":9513,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41606912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}