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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20241120T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20241120T230000
DTSTAMP:20260411T111836
CREATED:20241017T153402Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241115T183929Z
UID:10003614-1732096800-1732143600@cmsa.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Thinking Like Transformers - A Practical Session
DESCRIPTION:New Technologies in Mathematics Seminar \nSpeaker: Gail Weiss\, EPFL \nTitle: Thinking Like Transformers – A Practical Session \nAbstract: With the help of the RASP programming language\, we can better imagine how transformers—the powerful attention based sequence processing architecture—solve certain tasks. Some tasks\, such as simply repeating or reversing an input sequence\, have reasonably straightforward solutions\, but many others are more difficult. To unlock a fuller intuition of what can and cannot be achieved with transformers\, we must understand not just the RASP operations but also how to use them effectively.\nIn this session\, I would like to discuss some useful tricks with you in more detail. How is the powerful selector_width operation yielded from the true RASP operations? How can a fixed-depth RASP program perform arbitrary length long-addition\, despite the equally large number of potential carry operations such a computation entails? How might a transformer perform in-context reasoning? And are any of these solutions reasonable\, i.e.\, realisable in practice? I will begin with a brief introduction of the base RASP operations to ground our discussion\, and then walk us through several interesting task solutions. Following this\, and armed with this deeper intuition of how transformers solve several tasks\, we will conclude with a discussion of what this implies for how knowledge and computations must spread out in transformer layers and embeddings in practice.
URL:https://cmsa.fas.harvard.edu/event/newtech_112024/
LOCATION:Virtual
CATEGORIES:New Technologies in Mathematics Seminar
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://cmsa.fas.harvard.edu/media/CMSA-NTM-Seminar-11.20.24.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20241120T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20241120T130000
DTSTAMP:20260411T111836
CREATED:20241104T194035Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241107T171413Z
UID:10003535-1732104000-1732107600@cmsa.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:CMSA Q&A Seminar: Anurag Anshu
DESCRIPTION:CMSA Q&A Seminar \nSpeaker: Anurag Anshu\, Harvard University \nTopic: What is quantum complexity theory? \n  \n 
URL:https://cmsa.fas.harvard.edu/event/cmsaqa_112024/
LOCATION:Common Room\, CMSA\, 20 Garden Street\, Cambridge\, MA\, 02138\, United States
CATEGORIES:CMSA Q&A Seminar
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://cmsa.fas.harvard.edu/media/CMSA-Q-A-Seminar-11.20.2024.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20241120T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20241120T160000
DTSTAMP:20260411T111836
CREATED:20241010T135347Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241115T183220Z
UID:10003593-1732114800-1732118400@cmsa.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:A new construction of c = 1 conformal blocks
DESCRIPTION:Mathematical Physics and Algebraic Geometry Seminar \nSpeaker: Qianyu Hao\, University of Geneva \nTitle: A new construction of c = 1 conformal blocks\n\nAbstract: The Virasoro conformal blocks are very interesting since they have many connections to other areas of math and physics. For example\, when c = 1\, they are related to tau functions of Painlevé equations. I will first explain what Virasoro conformal blocks are. Then I will describe a new way to construct Virasoro blocks at c = 1 on C by using the “abelian” Heisenberg conformal blocks on a branched double cover of C. The main new idea in our work is to use a spectral network. It is closely related to the idea of nonabelianization of the flat connections in the work of Gaiotto-Moore-Neitzke and Neitzke-Hollands. This nonabelianization construction enables us to compute the harder-to-get Virasoro blocks using the simpler abelian objects. This is based on a joint work with Andrew Neitzke.
URL:https://cmsa.fas.harvard.edu/event/mathphys_112024/
LOCATION:CMSA Room G10\, CMSA\, 20 Garden Street\, Cambridge\, MA\, 02138\, United States
CATEGORIES:Mathematical Physics and Algebraic Geometry
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://cmsa.fas.harvard.edu/media/CMSA-Mathematical-Physics-and-Algebraic-Geometry-11.20.2024.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20241120T163000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20241120T173000
DTSTAMP:20260411T111836
CREATED:20241120T165843Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241120T172458Z
UID:10003622-1732120200-1732123800@cmsa.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Perturbative Factorization Algebras
DESCRIPTION:Geometry and Quantum Theory Seminar \nSpeaker: Ahsan Khan\n\n\n\nTitle: Perturbative Factorization Algebras\n\nAbstract: In physics the starting point in studying a QFT is to write down an appropriate action functional. My talk will aim to sketch how this connects with the framework of factorization algebras.
URL:https://cmsa.fas.harvard.edu/event/quantumgeo_112024/
LOCATION:Science Center Hall E\, 1 Oxford Street\, Cambridge\, MA\, 02138\, United States
CATEGORIES:Geometry and Quantum Theory Seminar
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://cmsa.fas.harvard.edu/media/CMSA-Geometry-Quantum-Theory-11.20.2024.png
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