Virginia Woolf and the War of Self-Expression: The Great War and the Space-time Continuum in Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse

While many consider Virginia Woolf to be one of the leading Modernist writers in the English artistic avant-garde movement, few take into consideration the challenges which she faced as she created some of her most critically acclaimed work. In this study I investigate the manifestation of both the Great War and an advanced understanding of the space-time continuum in Virginia Woolf’s personal understanding of the struggle with self-expression. I chose these two subjects of study because the destructiveness of the Great War forced an entire culture to face the inhumanity of mankind while an advanced understanding of space and time dictated that the teleological notion of immutable space time be abandoned to the discontinuous and chaotic nature of quantum theory. I examine Woolf’s diaries, letters, and two of her post-war novels, Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, in an effort to explore the method she found by which one can overcome the alienation incurred by the inexpressible nature of the self and the unknowability of the other, both of which have been exacerbated by the fragmentation of the Modern era. Through the triumphant moments of self-expression of three of her characters and the desperate suicide of one, Virginia Woolf illustrates how the search for any grand meaning in life is futile; however, if one is able to notice minor daily miracles, the ultimately insignificant battles one faces are made more worthwhile, and one may still be able to find beauty in something as arduous as life

Calculation of the Stability Index in Parameter-Dependent Calculus of Variations Problems: Buckling of a Twisted Elastic Strut

We consider the problem of minimizing the energy of an inextensible elastic strut with length 1 subject to an imposed twist angle and force. In a standard calculus of variations approach, one first locates equilibria by solving the Euler--Lagrange ODE with boundary conditions at arclength values 0 and 1. Then one classifies each equilibrium by counting conjugate points, with local minima corresponding to equilibria with no conjugate points. These conjugate points are arclength values $\sigma \le 1$ at which a second ODE (the Jacobi equation) has a solution vanishing at $0$ and $\sigma$. Finding conjugate points normally involves the numerical solution of a set of initial value problems for the Jacobi equation. For problems involving a parameter $\lambda$, such as the force or twist angle in the elastic strut, this computation must be repeated for every value of $\lambda$ of interest. Here we present an alternative approach that takes advantage of the presence of a parameter $\lambda$. Rather than search for conjugate points $\sigma \le 1$ at a fixed value of $\lambda$, we search for a set of special parameter values $\lambda_m$ (with corresponding Jacobi solution \bfzeta^m) for which $\sigma=1$ is a conjugate point. We show that, under appropriate assumptions, the index of an equilibrium at any $\lambda$ equals the number of these \bfzeta^m for which \langle \bfzeta^m, \Op \bfzeta^m \rangle < 0, where \Op is the Jacobi differential operator at $\lambda$. This computation is particularly simple when $\lambda$ appears linearly in \Op. We apply this approach to the elastic strut, in which the force appears linearly in \Op, and, as a result, we locate the conjugate points for any twisted unbuckled rod configuration without resorting to numerical solution of differential equations. In addition, we numerically compute two-dimensional sheets of buckled equilibria (as the two parameters of force and twist are varied) via a coordinated family of one-dimensional parameter continuation computations. Conjugate points for these buckled equilibria are determined by numerical solution of the Jacobi ODE

MediaCommons: Social Networking Tools for Digital Scholarly Communication

New York University, working with the Institute for the Future of the Book, seeks Level II funding in order build a working prototype of a set of networking tools that will serve as the membership system for MediaCommons, an all-electronic scholarly publishing network in the digital humanities. This set of tools, which one might imagine as bringing together the functionalities of e-portfolio software, social networking systems, and electronic publishing platforms, will enable the users of MediaCommons to find one another, collaborate, and disseminate their work in new ways. Within this social network, scholars would be able to make available a wide range of their work, including published texts ranging from the monograph to the article, works-in-progress, blogs and other more informal online writing, and other activities that often go unnoticed as forms of scholarly production, such as reviews of other scholars' work, as well as syllabi and other teaching resources

Small PSL(2,F) representations of Seifert fiber space groups

Let M be a Seifert fiber space with non-abelian fundamental group and admitting a triangulation with t tetrahedra. We show that there is a non-abelian PSL(2,F) quotient where |F|0 and use this to show that the lens space recognition problem lies in coNP for Seifert fiber space input. We end with a discussion of our results in the context of distinguishing lens spaces from other 3--manifolds more generally.Mathematic