2008 Books

[cdave]

These things come threes.

One of my half written blog posts is a break down of last year's new year's resolutions (mostly FAIL, but that was meme of the year). One of which was to blog about each book I'd read.

makyo actually posted a list of all the books he read last year.

So I'll keep a better list of what I've read this year. Even if I don't manage to write anything about it. For the purposes of numbering I'll not count weekly or monthly comic, but I'll try to mention them.

(I'll start with Christmas since that's the last date I can remember what I'd finished reading)

-4) Space Captain Smith by Toby Frost
Won at the BSFA 50th birthday raffle. My prediction was from the cover was three parts ripping yarn, to one part silly fun, to one part steampunk.
Was actually three parts silly fun, to one part ripping yarn. It's essentially a very silly space opera, which isn't in itself a bad thing. But I'd been expecting a bit more of a heroic tale, than an anti-hero.

-3) Symmetry and the Monster by Mark Ronan (Popular Science: Maths)
Really rather good. But there did seem to a big hole. Tells the chronological story of the study of Symmetry in Maths, including potted biographies of the Mathematicians involved. The occasional forays into Physics naturally caught my attention.
The election orbitals that make up the basis for the atomic table are the simplest 3D symmetries! I think I knew that before, but this made it so clear.
And those same three dimensional symmetries could be behind the number of force carriers for the fundamental forces. 1 for EM, 3 for weak nuclear, 8 for strong nuclear. Anyone want to bet if we find new particles at work in CERN, the force will need 15 particles to mediate it?
I probably misunderstood, but there seemed to be a bit missing from the end of the book. The author calls forwards a lot. Stating that this seemingly tangential theorem will be used later, or that this result will be explained in more detail later. On of these promised clarifications was the proof (or rather a very high level description of the proof. Many of the papers in this area are literally hundreds of times longer than most modern papers) that there are only 26 of these >complicated mathematical object<s, of which the titular Monster is the largest. But it didn't seem to have appeared by the end of the book, leaving me to wonder if it has in fact been proved, or if there may be a Monsterous Monster eventually.

Three graphic novels lent to me by Fuzz, purchased at the London Autumn MCM Expo
-3) Fray by Joss Whedon (Graphic Novel) On loan from Fuzz
-2) Witchblade Origins Volume 1 by David Wohl, and Christina Z. and Michael Turner.(Graphic Novel)
-1) Midnight Kiss by Tony Lee (Graphic Novel)

*) Weekly comic: The DFC.

1) The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse by Robert Rankin

2) Hunter's Moon by David Deveraux

{edit: Oops missed one: The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse by Robert Rankin}

Comments

[offensive-mango.livejournal.com]

I've done this too, for 2008! I've been keeping a private post all year. At some point today or tomorrow I'm going to post it for all to see.

Books

[(Anonymous)]

Hunter's Moon by David Deveraux looks interesting if I could borrow it after you are done. Also, you had another hardback book with you on that Monday which looked interesting - can't remember what it was called.

Queen & Country (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_%26_Country) is a good read if you can find it. I borrowed the first two stories off my housemate.

Fuzz

[alias_sqbr]

Wait, are these "complicated mathematical objects" the sporadic simple groups? Because that's what I did my Phd on! *rubs hands gleefully*

See this poster I made (In which I make a bad pun about "The monster") The diagram in the top right has a spelling mistake in it :/

Anyway, there's definitely only 26 of them, thanks to the work of the finite simple group classification project, which my supervisor took part in. Heh. I didn't know it was officially called "The Enormous Theorem" :D

*physically restrains self from talking about group theory at you some more. I get so few opportunities!*

[cdave]

They are indeed. I was going to call them the "set of symmetry atoms which exist outside of the well defined periodic table of symmetry atoms"
But then realised that I hadn't defined symmetry atom, so it would just be gobbledy gook, and "symmetry atoms" and "periodic table" are just terms Ronan uses, so no group theorist would get it.

This wiki article suffers from the same problem as the book (and my A-level chemistry teacher). It gives a very brief overview of how the 26 sporadic groups were uncovered, even though that is covered elsewhere, but does not make any attempt to explain how we know that there are no more, which is the point of the article.

How do mathematicians know that if they investigated a 32 dimensional lattice/densely packed hypersphere arrangement they won't find more? Write that explanation and stick on Wikipedia, I dare you. :)


Mathematicians are great. I've talked makyo into giving a talk on topology at Eastercon this year.

Re: Books

[cdave]

If it's on the list, I've finished reading it :)

Sure. I think I've told you you need to to read the Charlie Stross's Laundry novels. If I've not before, then you do. I've got the first two, and a third one's just come out in the states.

[alias_sqbr]

Ah, sorry, I thought you were wondering if they were certain, not how they became certain.

To be honest I'm a bit fuzzy on the classification myself: I just used it :) But flipping through the literature review of my thesis The status of the classification of the finite simple groups makes an attempt to explain it in "simple" terms (by the standards of people who have Phds in pure mathematics :)).

Skimming that article again I have a fair grasp of how it works in principle, but I think it would take a while for me to explain it. Also I'm reminded of how much I've forgotten: I honestly can only half remember what a simple group is!