Steve McCormick
@quasilocal.com
Sweden-based, Germany-adjacent, Scottish-Australian Mathematician. Mathematician who pretends to be a physicist sometimes (convincing nobody). Maker of dubious memes, and exploring my new home near the arctic circle (Luleå).
New postdoc position advertised in geometric analysis (and/or math-GR) with me in the frozen wastelands of the north (Luleå, Sweden)
web103.reachmee.com/ext/I003/583...
web103.reachmee.com/ext/I003/583...
Postdoctoral scholarship in Mathematics, with focus on geometric analysis and mathematical general relativity
The Division of Mathematical Sciences, at the Department of Engineering Sciences and Mathematics at Luleå
web103.reachmee.com
December 16, 2025 at 6:43 PM
New postdoc position advertised in geometric analysis (and/or math-GR) with me in the frozen wastelands of the north (Luleå, Sweden)
web103.reachmee.com/ext/I003/583...
web103.reachmee.com/ext/I003/583...
What the hell...
Is there any distinction between the different papers? Like a majority are surely not showing any intellectual independence, right?
Is there any distinction between the different papers? Like a majority are surely not showing any intellectual independence, right?
November 1, 2025 at 10:55 AM
What the hell...
Is there any distinction between the different papers? Like a majority are surely not showing any intellectual independence, right?
Is there any distinction between the different papers? Like a majority are surely not showing any intellectual independence, right?
Lol brings back memories.
I do still actually check it occasionally, but never even make eye contact with the crazies. Occasionally it reminds me of a paper I wanted to read though
I do still actually check it occasionally, but never even make eye contact with the crazies. Occasionally it reminds me of a paper I wanted to read though
September 21, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Lol brings back memories.
I do still actually check it occasionally, but never even make eye contact with the crazies. Occasionally it reminds me of a paper I wanted to read though
I do still actually check it occasionally, but never even make eye contact with the crazies. Occasionally it reminds me of a paper I wanted to read though
Reposted by Steve McCormick
Okay, now I’ve found their “Bagpipe Practice Room” I think Scotrail might just be having us on!
August 30, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Okay, now I’ve found their “Bagpipe Practice Room” I think Scotrail might just be having us on!
(I found a call due very soon promoting internationalisation to recruit someone from outside Europe with less than 2 years on the post-PhD clock but not sure I can come up with a candidate quick enough)
August 30, 2025 at 1:37 PM
(I found a call due very soon promoting internationalisation to recruit someone from outside Europe with less than 2 years on the post-PhD clock but not sure I can come up with a candidate quick enough)
Anyone in the math GR / geometric analysis communiy know anyone who's in need of a postdoc around 1 year from now and would be interested in coming to the frozen wastelands of the north? (And has/will have a non-Euro PhD)
August 30, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Anyone in the math GR / geometric analysis communiy know anyone who's in need of a postdoc around 1 year from now and would be interested in coming to the frozen wastelands of the north? (And has/will have a non-Euro PhD)
I asked ChatGPT if it knew who I am based off of our chats. The answer was (obviously) yes 😅
August 11, 2025 at 12:28 PM
I asked ChatGPT if it knew who I am based off of our chats. The answer was (obviously) yes 😅
Reposted by Steve McCormick
If kids’ schools trained them for work based on what everyone thought the hot new technology was going to be, both my kids would have spent the past several years learning about the blockchain. This is why schools don’t attempt to do workplace training: life is pretty long.
August 9, 2025 at 11:23 AM
If kids’ schools trained them for work based on what everyone thought the hot new technology was going to be, both my kids would have spent the past several years learning about the blockchain. This is why schools don’t attempt to do workplace training: life is pretty long.
A last little bit of swedish summer yesterday
Guitar and some beers, spotted some berries, and then made a little spiky friend
Guitar and some beers, spotted some berries, and then made a little spiky friend
August 10, 2025 at 9:52 AM
A last little bit of swedish summer yesterday
Guitar and some beers, spotted some berries, and then made a little spiky friend
Guitar and some beers, spotted some berries, and then made a little spiky friend
Reposted by Steve McCormick
For the math folks on here: NSF has suspended Terry Tao's grant. www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/...
NSF Award Search: Award # 2347850
Structure theory for measure-preserving systems, additive combinatorics, and correlations of multiplicative functions
www.nsf.gov
July 31, 2025 at 10:44 PM
For the math folks on here: NSF has suspended Terry Tao's grant. www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/...
Some kind of joke related to observing/measuring the back of the poster?
August 1, 2025 at 8:09 AM
Some kind of joke related to observing/measuring the back of the poster?
A friend is currently advertising a PhD position in harmonic analysis (Melbourne + Chennai*): lashi-bandara.github.io/toc/supervis...
Pass it on if you know anyone who might be interested.
* Position is joint between Deakin University IIT-Madras, with 3 years in Melbourne and 1 year in Chennai
Pass it on if you know anyone who might be interested.
* Position is joint between Deakin University IIT-Madras, with 3 years in Melbourne and 1 year in Chennai
PhD Project - Kato Square Root Problem on Riemannian Spaces - Lashi Bandara
lashi-bandara.github.io
August 1, 2025 at 8:06 AM
A friend is currently advertising a PhD position in harmonic analysis (Melbourne + Chennai*): lashi-bandara.github.io/toc/supervis...
Pass it on if you know anyone who might be interested.
* Position is joint between Deakin University IIT-Madras, with 3 years in Melbourne and 1 year in Chennai
Pass it on if you know anyone who might be interested.
* Position is joint between Deakin University IIT-Madras, with 3 years in Melbourne and 1 year in Chennai
Reposted by Steve McCormick
My last living musical hero is still my hero but unfortunately no longer living. RIP to the great, great Mr. Tom Lehrer.
July 27, 2025 at 5:33 PM
My last living musical hero is still my hero but unfortunately no longer living. RIP to the great, great Mr. Tom Lehrer.
I say "attempt" because admittedly, I still don't really understand it all too well but seems we can prove stuff about it.
We were however able to show that the quantity arises as the value of a reduced Hamiltonian for the Einstein equations, which I think is kind of neat
We were however able to show that the quantity arises as the value of a reduced Hamiltonian for the Einstein equations, which I think is kind of neat
June 16, 2025 at 11:34 AM
I say "attempt" because admittedly, I still don't really understand it all too well but seems we can prove stuff about it.
We were however able to show that the quantity arises as the value of a reduced Hamiltonian for the Einstein equations, which I think is kind of neat
We were however able to show that the quantity arises as the value of a reduced Hamiltonian for the Einstein equations, which I think is kind of neat
Recently, we (with Mattias Dahl and Klaus Kröncke) gave a definition of a new geometric "mass-like" invariant for asymptotically (locally) hyperbolic manifolds, which we've found satisfies some interesting properties.
This paper is our attempt to understand it a little better.
This paper is our attempt to understand it a little better.
June 16, 2025 at 11:31 AM
Recently, we (with Mattias Dahl and Klaus Kröncke) gave a definition of a new geometric "mass-like" invariant for asymptotically (locally) hyperbolic manifolds, which we've found satisfies some interesting properties.
This paper is our attempt to understand it a little better.
This paper is our attempt to understand it a little better.
New paper day! 🥳
arxiv.org/abs/2506.11841
arxiv.org/abs/2506.11841
The Volume-Renormalized Mass from a Hamiltonian Perspective
We demonstrate that the volume-renormalized mass for asymptotically hyperbolic manifolds recently introduced by the authors can be deduced from a reduced Hamiltonian perspective. In order to do this, ...
arxiv.org
June 16, 2025 at 5:11 AM
New paper day! 🥳
arxiv.org/abs/2506.11841
arxiv.org/abs/2506.11841
I'm told that when I was really little, I was running into the motion sensor to open the door of a store before arriving customers triggered it
When I was visibly upset for being too slow, a group stepped back and let the door close again so I could "open it" for them -- it was the band Wet Wet Wet
When I was visibly upset for being too slow, a group stepped back and let the door close again so I could "open it" for them -- it was the band Wet Wet Wet
Right folks. Feeling rather down at the moment so bringing back an oldie
Please Quote this with your most minor celebrity interaction
Please Quote this with your most minor celebrity interaction
June 14, 2025 at 8:43 AM
I'm told that when I was really little, I was running into the motion sensor to open the door of a store before arriving customers triggered it
When I was visibly upset for being too slow, a group stepped back and let the door close again so I could "open it" for them -- it was the band Wet Wet Wet
When I was visibly upset for being too slow, a group stepped back and let the door close again so I could "open it" for them -- it was the band Wet Wet Wet
Seems arXiv now uses AI to try to convince you that you're misclassifying your own paper's subject area 🙃
June 14, 2025 at 8:23 AM
Seems arXiv now uses AI to try to convince you that you're misclassifying your own paper's subject area 🙃
[Disclaimer: Not any kind of expert, so I'm probably missing things but the gist is roughly right I think 😅 ]
May 24, 2025 at 12:50 PM
[Disclaimer: Not any kind of expert, so I'm probably missing things but the gist is roughly right I think 😅 ]
The amusing thing is that there *is* an etymological connection here... And of course some variation of calling townspeople "burgers" exists in almost all European languages. It's where "bourgeois" comes from even. And connected to place names like Hamburg, Edinburgh, Strasbourg, etc. (I think)
I completely forgot citizens are called burgers in the Netherlands
Are you fucking shitting me?
May 24, 2025 at 12:49 PM
The amusing thing is that there *is* an etymological connection here... And of course some variation of calling townspeople "burgers" exists in almost all European languages. It's where "bourgeois" comes from even. And connected to place names like Hamburg, Edinburgh, Strasbourg, etc. (I think)
Can any physicist explain this idea of boundedness of the Euclidean Einstein-Hilbert action in the context of this paper? (Purely from a GR/geometric perspective, no path integrals)
arxiv.org/abs/2505.13600
arxiv.org/abs/2505.13600
Constraints are not enough
The Euclidean Einstein-Hilbert action is well-known to be unbounded below and thus to raise many questions regarding the definition of the gravitational path integral. A variety of works since the lat...
arxiv.org
May 24, 2025 at 11:58 AM
Can any physicist explain this idea of boundedness of the Euclidean Einstein-Hilbert action in the context of this paper? (Purely from a GR/geometric perspective, no path integrals)
arxiv.org/abs/2505.13600
arxiv.org/abs/2505.13600
Reposted by Steve McCormick
Not only is this true, there are 33 whole-ass mentions of this in the script and each one is freaking hilarious
whills.nu/4/sw4.html#h...
whills.nu/4/sw4.html#h...
May 11, 2025 at 4:24 AM
Not only is this true, there are 33 whole-ass mentions of this in the script and each one is freaking hilarious
whills.nu/4/sw4.html#h...
whills.nu/4/sw4.html#h...
Just got some art done by Alexandr Elichev for my latest homebrew Frosthaven class and wanted to share it somewhere :)
May 9, 2025 at 6:41 PM
Just got some art done by Alexandr Elichev for my latest homebrew Frosthaven class and wanted to share it somewhere :)
How normal is it to write words correctly, but write the letters in the wrong order?
Sometimes when I write fast, I fill in the letters the wrong way. Eg. When writing "Letter" in the middle of a sentence I might write the "ett" then the "L" in front of them and then the "er"
... it feels weird
Sometimes when I write fast, I fill in the letters the wrong way. Eg. When writing "Letter" in the middle of a sentence I might write the "ett" then the "L" in front of them and then the "er"
... it feels weird
May 2, 2025 at 10:29 AM
How normal is it to write words correctly, but write the letters in the wrong order?
Sometimes when I write fast, I fill in the letters the wrong way. Eg. When writing "Letter" in the middle of a sentence I might write the "ett" then the "L" in front of them and then the "er"
... it feels weird
Sometimes when I write fast, I fill in the letters the wrong way. Eg. When writing "Letter" in the middle of a sentence I might write the "ett" then the "L" in front of them and then the "er"
... it feels weird
Yeh, it's not even the AI that's the problem -- I actually *do* even think that we aren't that far from being able to generate tools to help prove things.
But they seem to think that essentially papermilling is a goal...
But they seem to think that essentially papermilling is a goal...
April 29, 2025 at 7:11 AM
Yeh, it's not even the AI that's the problem -- I actually *do* even think that we aren't that far from being able to generate tools to help prove things.
But they seem to think that essentially papermilling is a goal...
But they seem to think that essentially papermilling is a goal...