My research focuses on “homotopical physics”: the interplay between mathematical physics (particularly quantum field theory) and higher (aka categorical) algebra. Other buzzwords that describe my work: higher symmetries, topological field theory, phases of condensed matter, “moonshine” phenomena, perturbative quantization, categories, representation theory, and algebraic topology.

via: https://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2025/10/a_complex_qutrit_inside_an_oct.html#c069081

The writer Ta-Nehisi Coates joins Ezra Klein on the show to discuss how the left should think about the work of politics and persuasion in this moment.

In which Ezra Klein partly redeems himself.

Excellent deconstruction of the book that birthed the self-help industry and the deeply insecure man who wrote it.

By ignoring the rhetoric and actions of the Turning Point USA founder, pundits and politicians are sanitizing his legacy.

No paywall: https://archive.is/20251003102345/https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/charlie-kirk-ezra-klein-tanehisi-coates

Green’s Dictionary of Slang is the largest historical dictionary of English slang. Written by Jonathon Green over 17 years from 1993, it reached the printed page in 2010 in a three-volume set containing nearly 100,000 entries supported by over 400,000 citations from c. AD 1000 to the present day. The main focus of the dictionary is the coverage of over 500 years of slang from c. 1500 onwards.

via: Montell, Wordslut

My research is situated in the interdisciplinary field of sociocultural linguistics and takes a mixed-methods approach to the relationship between language, identity, embodiment, and social power. It also grows from a community-based agenda that centers the experience of transgender people, broadly defined. Major areas of investigation include the gendered characteristics of the voice, trans-inclusive language practices and linguistic activism, the discursive construction of “biological sex,” the changing status of singular ‘they’, and the relationship between gender and race in drag-related media.

via: Montell, Wordslut

Zvezdelina Stankova discusses the raffle function - and her epic proof ends with an interesting connection.

Beautiful, beautiful problem. Abstract algebra, calculus, number theory, and combinatorics all wrapped up into a bow. :)

In this cross-over episode between the Main Sequence and Tom Academy, we see what it would take to prove that you can’t do what you already thought you couldn’t do, and learn about Tom’s prurient interest in Platonic horrors. Yes, the whole 80 minutes is about cubes and their relatives.

A talk by Miles Silberling-Cook about his crate forte and its multithreading capabilities. 09/30/2025

We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply.

The point is that the possibility of overreach is a price worth paying exactly because shame serves as a robustly liberal alternative to the political violence that Klein and company rightly abhor. It is, quite literally, the least one can do to ensure rules of social conduct that upheld minimal levels of dignity for all involved.

Great stuff.

Great video on amatonormativity and the loneliness of masculinity.

The first psychology rebuttal I’ve ever read.

via: https://www.nature.com/articles/mp201723

The foundation of a free society is the ability to participate in politics without fear of violence. To lose that is to risk losing everything.

In which I somehow lose all respect for Ezra Klein.

In modern international politics, it is just as important to win hearts and minds, in one’s own country and abroad, as it is to have power by force of arms. We call this power over hearts and minds: the power to sway people by persuasion rather than by force, soft power. And no country on Earth has mastered the art of soft power through cultural media quite like Japan has.

Love using mathematics to prove weird facts like this.