## Top new questions this week:

### What is the purpose of the flat/fppf/fpqc topologies?

There have been other similar questions before (e.g. What is your picture of the flat topology?), but none of them seem to have been answered fully. As someone who originally started in ...

ag.algebraic-geometry grothendieck-topology

### Parametric solutions of Pell's equation

Given a positive integer $n$ which is not a perfect square, it is well-known that Pell's equation $a^2 - nb^2 = 1$ is always solvable in non-zero integers $a$ and $b$. Question: Let $n$ be a ...

nt.number-theory diophantine-equations

### Categorical proof subgroups of free groups are free?

This is a crossport of this question from MSE. Is there a categorical proof that subgroups of free groups are free? How about the result that subgroups of free abelian groups are free abelian? ...

gr.group-theory ct.category-theory free-groups abelian-groups

### A possibly surprising appearance of Lucas numbers

Let $S$ be the set of polynomials defined as follows: $0$ is in $S$, and if $p$ is in $S$, then $p + 1$ is in $S$ and $x \cdot p$ is in $S$, so that $S$ "grows" in generations: $g(0)=\{0\}$, ...

nt.number-theory co.combinatorics

### Can all unit-distance graphs have their vertices at algebraic integers?

A graph $G$ is described as a unit-distance graph if there exists a function $f:G \rightarrow \mathbb{C}$ such that for every edge $(u,v) \in E(G)$, we have $|f(u) - f(v)| = 1$. Obviously, we can ...

ag.algebraic-geometry co.combinatorics graph-theory mg.metric-geometry

### How to make the Capelli's identity less mysterious?

The formulation of the Capelli's identity is very elementary; it has important applications in invariant theory and representation theory, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capelli%27s_identity To ...

rt.representation-theory noncommutative-algebra invariant-theory determinants

### Why is "The Higman Rope Trick" thus named?

I'm studiyng Higman's Embedding Theorem, and a fundamental part of the proof is the following lemma: If R is a benign normal subgroup of finitely generated group F, then F/R can be embedded in a ...

gr.group-theory terminology combinatorial-group-theor

## Greatest hits from previous weeks:

### Text for an introductory Real Analysis course.

Any suggestions on a good text to use for teaching an introductory Real Analysis course? Specifically what have you found to be useful about the approach taken in specific texts?

books ca.analysis-and-odes big-list textbook-recommendation real-analysis

### Computer Algebra Errors

In the course of doing mathematics, I make extensive use of computer-based calculations. There's one CAS that I use mostly, even though I occasionally come across out-and-out wrong answers. After ...

computer-algebra big-list

### Exactness of pure functors

I can't prove this lemma in "Notes on motivic cohomology, Beilinson, Macpherson, Schechtman": Lemma. A pure functor is exact. Definitions: A mixed category $\mathcal{M}$ is a ...

motivic-cohomology abelian-categories

### Examples of Brody hyperbolic affine varieties which are not Kobayashi hyperbolic

Let $X$ be a complex space. We say that $X$ is Brody hyperbolic if there is no non-constant holomorphic map $f\colon\mathbb C\to X$. We say that $X$ is Kobayashi hyperbolic if the Kobayashi ...

complex-geometry kobayashi-hyperbolicity
### Conjugation of the quotient of $SL(n,\mathbb{C})$ by a finite subgroup
Let $G={SL}_{n,{\mathbb{C}}}$, the special linear group over ${\mathbb{C}}$. Let $H\subset G$ be a finite subgroup. Set $X=G/H$ be the corresponding homogeneous space, it is a complex variety. Let ...