TQFT for vampires

[ursula]

My first AMS Feature Column, Topological Quantum Field Theory for Vampires is now live, with art from cassyblue. Thank you to everyone who helped me workshop this!

Comments

[hamletta]

Yay! (Not that I understand, bot looks cool!)

[ursula]

I learned a bunch of stuff about making illustrations along the way!

[flippac]

Yay! Also, apologies for being a highly-wordy pain in the arse while workshopping!

[ursula]

No need to apologize, I understood it as enthusiasm!

[yhlee]

Congrats! (Over my head, I'm afraid, but still very cool.)

[ursula]

Hmmm, it's helpful to me to know which bits are most intimidating? Obviously this will depend on the person--my coworker just swung by my office and was like, "Wow, I have never heard of these books"--but I am at least trying to provide a friendly guide to the landscape!

[yhlee]

Your article is actually very lucid. The problem is I know juuuuuust enough math/physics to know that I am hopelessly outclassed by all the things that you are eliding. For example, I've never done tensors (although I used to watch Joe reduce 100-term tensors for his 500-level gravitational physics course senior year, ugh). The last time I attempted to teach myself category theory in order to read an extremely ambitious cross-disciplinary book on...I think it was AI or some such thing, I didn't have enough background and ended up quitting. And I likewise ran away from quantum anything--I never got that far in physics, but I audited a quantum computation/cryptology course from Prof. N. David Mermin for about two weeks before dropping out because my actual courses were killing me.

...I am the world's most inept math B.A.

[ursula]

I actually think it's really important for the discipline to allow for mediocre math majors, but as someone who has taught quite a few math majors, I am quite certain that you were not one of them!

Anyway, no mathematician would ever reduce a 100-term tensor. That sounds like a poor physics life choice!

[yhlee]

Heh! I graduated with distinction in all subjects...I would have had a higher GPA if I'd been smart enough to get out of the CS classes before I really started having trouble. But I bombed the math GRE...I am a slow thinker, and the only reason I could do the weekly problem sets is that I literally read them as soon as they were assigned and then spent the entire week slowly cogitating over them. I'm not sure I would have gotten into a decent grad school if I'd pursued a doctorate.

I agree that the 100-term tensors looked horrifying and awful, but they were regular features of Joe's problem sets out of the textbook. One more reason I'm not a physicist!

(That, and I tend to break lab equipment.)

[karalee]

Congratulations!

[ursula]

Thank you!

I am currently the only person writing the AMS Feature Column who does not have a nickname of four or fewer letters!

[hilarita]

Read. Turned brain inside out. May understand a few more things than I started off knowing :)