Speaker: Charles Doran (University of Alberta)Title: Fibration and Degeneration in Calabi-Yau GeometryAbstract: At String-Math 2015 in Sanya, I gave evidence for a new geometric duality that conjecturally connects mirror pairs of Calabi-Yau manifolds with extra structure: fibrations on one side and degenerations on the other. The “DHT mirror symmetry” conjecture unifies mirror constructions for the Calabi-Yau and Fano/Landau-Ginzburg cases. I will review the status of the DHT conjecture in several settings and describe proven implications in Hodge theory, geometry, and physics.

Talk Title: Neuroscience, behavior, and what's in-betweenAbstract: I'll present an overview of a forthcoming book about how we can link neuroscience to cognition and behavior. Drawing on several little-known results in early computer science, I'll describe how patterns in behavior can rigorously imply the existence of particular unobserved states and structures. This provides a foundation for linking behavioral regularities to what must be present in neural implementations. The resulting states are often re-describable in abstract terms more familiar to cognitive science, like "sets", "numbers", "stacks", etc. I'll highlight the implementation of "stacks", commonly used for grammars, and show how to characterize the space of possible neural implementations, including with subsystems/circuits operating in serial and parallel. The approach provides a set of concrete hypotheses, a guide for neural data analysis, and points towards a method for understanding structure in modern AI systems, including LLMs. I'll conclude by suggesting a Marr-like framework in which the bridges between levels can be made rigorous, connecting behavior, high-level theorizing, and neural implementation.Bio: I completed my PhD from MIT BCS in 2011. I was a postdoc and a faculty member at the University of Rochester until 2018, and then moved to psychology and neuroscience at UC Berkeley. My lab works on language, numerical cognition, and spanning cognition and computation.Webinar Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89002014229?pwd=bzZuZGh6cVhOSjJ6TlNZVHgrRnNaQT09Followed by a reception with food and drink in 3rd floor atrium

Peter Hull (Brown University)

Recreational swims provide a fun and engaging way for children and parents to practice new skills, stay active, and enjoy quality time together in the pool with the MIT community.No Z Center (MIT Recreation - Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center) membership is required to participate.A parent or caregiver must accompany children in the water. Per Z Center policy, each adult may supervise up to two children at a time.Children must be at least 6 months old to join. If younger, they must be able to hold their head up comfortably. Registration is here. Only for MIT Spouses and Partners Connect members.

Coordination and Policy | Stephen Morris

Writing about numbers is an indispensable skill for communicators across the disciplines. Whether sharing your experimental results, supporting a stance or policy recommendation with quantitative evidence, or conveying financial information in a report, your job as a writer is to present this data clearly and effectively in straightforward pose.Sound like a communication tool you want to sharpen or add to your writer’s toolbox? Then why not join the MIT Writing and Communication Center (WCC) at its new workshop, “Writing about Numbers: Communicating Quantitative Information Clearly,” . Led by WCC Lecturer and communication specialist Chris Featherman, PhD, this interactive, hands-on workshop will help you do the following:Establish the context for quantitative dataDesign paragraphs for communicating numbersReport numbers in the text and relate them back to the main topicDescribe and summarize patterns in your quantitative dataPresent numbers without jargon to non-specialist audiences