A Brighter Future

Hello Everyone!

Quick Update:

1. I placed out of the core Complex Analysis course at Penn, freeing me up to do a reading course on Symplectic Topology with Prof. Block.

2. I have been neglecting my reading course because I have been occupied with the details of the Thom-Pontryagin Construction which relates homotopy classes of maps $f: M^n\to S^p$ (the p-sphere) and framed cobordism classes of closed $n-p$-dimensional manifolds. It was fun but I wasn't planning on the extra labor.

3. I just gave the pizza seminar talk on "Soliton Solutions of Integrable Systems and Hirota's Method" Friday that went really well.

4. I just looked at Penn Math Courses for Fall 2009 and there is an awesome selection!

Notable entries include:

- P. Freyd's "Calculus of Variations" Course.

- Jonathan Block will continue the 3 course sequence on Algebraic Topology with 618.

- M. Ballard's "Complex Algebraic Geometry" Course: It should be interesting to see fresh blood teach this staple of Penn.

- Joachim Krieger is teaching a course on PDEs: A subject I hope to take as a minor oral topic. Calabi Fellow Joachim Kriger was recently cited five times Terry Tao's AMS Bulletin (Jan. 09) article on "Why Are Solitons Stable?"

- Ron Donagi is teaching a course on "Mathematical Foundations of Theoretical Physics" a course that enticed me into coming to Penn, but hasn't been taught in several years.

- The Eugenio Calabi is teaching a topics course on Differential Geometry backed with W. Wylie's Ricci Flow madness.

Next year is going to be awesome!