During the 2023–24 academic year, the CMSA will be hosting a Question and Answer (Q&A) Seminar, organized by Dan Freed and Sunghyuk Park. The seminar will meet weekly on Tuesdays from 12:30–1:30 pm (Eastern Time) in the common room at the CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge MA 02138. CMSA members may submit questions and suggest possible speakers using this form (link).

  • December 05, 2023 12:30 PM
Speaker: Mike Douglas (Harvard CMSA) and Anurag Anshu (Harvard Computer Science)
Title: CMSA Q and A Seminar 12/5/2023
Venue: Common Room, CMSA

CMSA Q and A Seminar Speakers: Mike Douglas (Harvard CMSA) and Anurag Anshu (Harvard Computer Science) Topics: Mike Douglas: What are scaling laws in deep learning? Anurag Anshu: What’s the difference between classical information theory and quantum information theory (or classical computation vs quantum computation)?  

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  • November 07, 2023 12:30 PM
Speaker: Michael Hopkins (Harvard Math) and Minhea Popa (Harvard Math)
Title: CMSA Q and A Seminar 11/7/2023
Venue: Common Room, CMSA

CMSA Q and A Seminar Speakers: Michael Hopkins (Harvard Math) and Minhea Popa (Harvard Math) Topics: Mike Hopkins: What are topological modular forms? Mihnea Popa: What is the abundance conjecture and why should it to be true?  

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  • October 24, 2023 12:30 PM
Speaker: Xi Yin (Harvard Physics) and Peter Kronheimer (Harvard Math)
Title: CMSA Q and A Seminar 10/24/23
Venue: Common Room, CMSA

CMSA Q and A Seminar Speakers: Xi Yin (Harvard Physics) and Peter Kronheimer (Harvard Math) Topics: Xi Yin: What is string field theory? Peter Kronheimer: What is Seiberg-Witten theory?

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  • October 10, 2023 12:30 PM
Speaker: Dan Freed (Harvard Math and CMSA) and Sunghyuk Park (CMSA)
Title: CMSA Q and A Seminar 10/10/23
Venue: Common Room, CMSA

CMSA Q and A Seminar Speakers: Dan Freed (Harvard Math and CMSA) and Sunghyuk Park (CMSA) Topics: Dan Freed: What is Dijkgraaf-Witten theory? Sunghyuk Park: What happened at the Clay Math Institute Workshop?

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  • October 03, 2023 12:30 PM
Speaker: Dan Freed (Harvard Math and CMSA) and Dan Berwick-Evans (UIUC)
Title: CMSA Q and A Seminar 10/3/2023
Venue: Common Room, CMSA

CMSA Q and A Seminar Speakers: Dan Freed (Harvard Math & CMSA) and Dan Berwick-Evans (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) Topics: Dan Freed: What is framing anomaly? How is it different from other anomalies? Dan Berwick-Evans: What is Atiyah-Singer index theorem?

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  • September 26, 2023 12:30 PM
Speaker: Michael Douglas (CMSA) and Mayuko Yamashita (Kyoto University)
Title: CMSA Q and A Seminar 9/26/2023
Venue: Common Room, CMSA

CMSA Q and A Seminar Speakers: Michael Douglas (CMSA) and Mayuko Yamashita (Kyoto University) Topics: Michael Douglas: “What is non-commutative field theory?” Mayuko Yamashita: “What is differential cohomology?”

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  • September 19, 2023 12:30 PM
Speaker: Dan Freed (Harvard Math and CMSA), Denis Auroux (Harvard Math)
Title: CMSA Q and A Seminar 9/19/2023
Venue: Common Room, CMSA

Speakers: Dan Freed (Harvard Math and CMSA), Denis Auroux (Harvard Math)

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