42,117 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
12k views

### Why do polynomials with coefficients $0,1$ like to have only factors with $0,1$ coefficients?

Conjecture. Let $P(x),Q(x) \in \mathbb{R}[x]$ be two monic polynomials with non-negative coefficients. If $R(x)=P(x)Q(x)$ is $0,1$ polynomial (coefficients only from $\{0,1\}$), then $P(x)$ and $Q(x)$ ...
11k views

2k views

### Which finite abelian groups aren't homotopy groups of spheres?

Someone asked me if all finite abelian groups arise as homotopy groups of spheres. I strongly doubted it, and I bet ten bucks that $\mathbb{Z}_5$ is not $\pi_k(S^n)$ for any $n,k$. But I don't know ...
3k views

### Constructing non-torsion rational points (over Q) on elliptic curves of rank > 1

Consider an elliptic curve $E$ defined over $\mathbb Q$. Assume that the rank of $E(\mathbb Q)$ is $\geq2$. (Assume the Birch-Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture if needed, so that analytic rank $=$ algebraic ...
2k views

### Are there periodicity phenomena in manifold topology with odd period?

The study of $n$-manifolds has some well-known periodicities in $n$ with period a power of $2$: $n \bmod 2$ is important. Poincaré duality implies that odd-dimensional compact oriented manifolds ...
6k views

### Why "open immersion" rather than "open embedding"?

When topologists speak of an "immersion", they are quite deliberately describing something that is not necessarily an "embedding." But I cannot think of any use of the word "embedding" in algebraic ...
3k views

### Grothendieck's Period Conjecture and the missing p-adic Hodge Theories

Singular cohomology and algebraic de Rham cohomology are both functors from the category of smooth projective algebraic varieties over $\mathbb Q$ to $\mathbb Q$-vectors spaces. They come with the ...
2k views

### What did Gelfand mean by suggesting to study "Heredity Principle" structures instead of categories?

Israel Gelfand wrote in his remarkable talk "Mathematics as an adequate language (a few remarks)", given at "The Unity of Mathematics" Conference in honor of his 90th birthday, the ...
2k views

### Uniformization over finite fields?

The following is a question I've been asking people on and off for a few years, mostly out of idle curiosity, though I think it's pretty interesting. Since I've made more or less no progress, I ...
1k views

### What is the current status of derived differential geometry?

I hope you will excuse this naive and general question. I've read from many places (e.g. Dominic Joyce's website, John Pardon's thesis, etc.) that the/a "right" foundations for many ...
2k views

### On the first sequence without triple in arithmetic progression

In this Numberphile video (from 3:36 to 7:41), Neil Sloane explains an amazing sequence: It is the lexicographically first among the sequences of positive integers without triple in arithmetic ...
### Atiyah's paper on complex structures on $S^6$
M. Atiyah has posted a preprint on arXiv on the non-existence of complex structure on the sphere $S^6$. https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.09366 It relies on the topological $K$-theory $KR$ and in ...