jef laga

[jeflaga]

Dear fellow students

My name is Jef and I come from Antwerp (aka Anversa), Belgium. I just finished my bachelor's degree at Ghent University, but spent the last semester in Paris with the Erasmus program (at Paris 7, Diderot). Next year I will be in Cambridge, UK for the Part III course. My mathematical interests remain quite broad but are mostly algebraically flavored. I do like mathematical biology as well, but my focus is more on the pure side for now. 

Other interests include hiking, rock climbing (mostly indoors), playing guitar, watching movies and enjoying beautiful art. 

Algebra courses: two linear algebra ones, group and ring theory, galois theory, projective geometry (emphasis on finite fields, how Ghent likes it), algebraic number theory and algebraic topology. 

Greetings

[Vavilov Nikolai]

 

 

28.07.2017, 13:38, "jeflaga" <jef...@hotmail.com>:

Dear Jef, thanks! I'm MOST impressed by your itinerary! Paris 7 is indeed an EXCELLENT

university, one of the VERY best ones in my field anyway, and Cambridge excels in everything,

INCLUDING undergraduate teaching.

Turning to Belgium, it's not just Gent that loves finite fields, it's also Bruxelles! In fact, in

the 1950-ies and the 1960-ies this type of geometry described in concrete combinatorial terms

was PREDOMINANTLY Belgian and Dutch specialty, as opposed to the French more abstract

algebro-geometric approach. Of course, Jacques Tits

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Tits

 

is an ABSOLUTE classic in this direction (open the volume of Como 1993 Conference on

Groups and Geometries -- edited by Lino, b.t.w., among others --- and you'll find my photos

of Tits there). Another absolute classic is Francis Buekenhout, and of course many people

in Belgium and the Netherlands still pursue this line of research, but now it became more

widespread also in the U.S., Germany, France,... --- and here in Italy, of course, Antonio Pasini

here in Siena (to be more specific, Contrada della Torre), is one of the best world experts on

that, and many others are working in this style nowadays.

Antwerpen is a WONDERFUL city, I've spent there the Fall of 1994 ("moules à volonté"),

upon invitation of my dear friend Fred Van Oystaeyen (before that I've spent a couple of weeks

learning to spell his last name correctly though!) Not everyone you know has a street named

after him, Fred does

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Van_Oystaeyen

 

Fred has done wonderful things for me, as we organised a conference in SPb back in 2002,

when the economical situation in Russia started to improve, but the resources of my university

were still quite cramped as compared with what they are today, Fred has covered the travel

expenses of all European invited speakers from his European project on Non-commutative

Geometry. This way, we could invite REAL top shots, including Claudio Procesi, Corrado De

Concini, and many others, and they all came!

So what I said at the opening ceremony about developing professional AND personal

friendships at an early age, was not a form of speech.

 

N.V.