[PLUG-TALK] cohomology

[Jeme A Brelin]

On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, spike spooner wrote:
> Jeme A Brelin wrote:
>> The rest of this is a long explanation of my home audio needs. I'll be 
>> shocked if anyone reads it, but I'm desperate to avoid writing a paper 
>> on group cohomology.
>
> I have two questions:

Man, are you just trying to feed my procrastination?

> (1) Is your group cohomology paper supposed to be about the cohomology 
> of groups of dolphins for a biology class, or about the cohomology of a 
> political focus group for a sociology or political science class? Or 
> other.

Decidedly other.  Cohomology of groups is a method of describing group 
representations (among other things) in abstract algebra.

See this: <URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohomology_of_groups >

> (2) What are the rules or ethical considerations about sharing or making 
> public such a paper?

I get it.  You ARE baiting me.  I'm going to play along because I'm that 
desperate for distraction.

I don't believe there is any field of mathematics in which research should 
not be made public.  The stuff is, by nature, so abstract as to have 
myriad applications both beneficent and malicious.  Those who choose an 
application, however, must deal with the ethical repercussions.

> I imagine there must, at least, be a time limit. Otherwise, someone with 
> access to your paper could run it through a filter that changes "that" 
> to "which" (or which changes "which" to "that"), and which changes 
> "dolphin" to "porpoise", and end up with a paper that could be turned in 
> to the same class.

Sure, they could.  It wouldn't do them any good, though.  It's a graduate 
course in mathematics.  Pretty much everyone gets an "A" regardless of the 
actual quality of their work.  You're not there for the slip of paper, but 
for the knowledge and insight.

> Some professors seem to be obsessed with production of original work as 
> opposed to learning the material of the course.

Well, at this level, failing to learn the material only hurts the student. 
The professor is tenured and the materials is fairly often beyond her 
understanding, too.  You get to a certain point where the professor 
becomes more of a guide and collaborator than a "teacher".

> What better way could one learn the (biology or sociology) material than 
> by writing a filter?

Yeah, it's not biology or sociology.

J.
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      Jeme A Brelin
     jeme at brelin.net
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