Regular Tessellation Link Complements

By regular tessellation, we mean any hyperbolic 3-manifold tessellated by ideal Platonic solids such that the symmetry group acts transitively on oriented flags. A regular tessellation has an invariant we call the cusp modulus. For small cusp modulus, we classify all regular tessellations. For large cusp modulus, we prove that a regular tessellations has to be infinite volume if its fundamental group is generated by peripheral curves only. This shows that there are at least 19 and at most 21 link complements that are regular tessellations (computer experiments suggest that at least one of the two remaining cases likely fails to be a link complement, but so far we have no proof). In particular, we complete the classification of all principal congruence link complements given in Baker and Reid for the cases of discriminant D=-3 and D=-4. We only describe the manifolds arising as complements of links here with a future publication "Regular Tessellation Links" giving explicit pictures of these links.Comment: 35 pages, 19 figures, 4 tables; version 2: minor chages; fixed title in arxiv's metadata; version3: addresses referee's comments, in particular, rewrite of discussion section; including ancillary file

The Ptolemy field of 33-manifold-representations

The Ptolemy coordinates for boundary-unipotent SL(n,C)-representations of a 3-manifold group were introduced in Garoufalidis-Thurston-Zickert inspired by the A-coordinates on higher Teichm\"{u}ller space due to Fock and Goncharov. In this paper, we define the Ptolemy field of a (generic) PSL(2,\C)-representation and prove that it coincides with the trace field of the representation. This gives an efficient algorithm to compute the trace field of a cusped hyperbolic manifold.Comment: 21 pages, 23 figure

First results of the SOAP project. Open access publishing in 2010

The SOAP (Study of Open Access Publishing) project has compiled data on the present offer for open access publishing in online peer-reviewed journals. Starting from the Directory of Open Access Journals, several sources of data are considered, including inspection of journal web site and direct inquiries within the publishing industry. Several results are derived and discussed, together with their correlations: the number of open access journals and articles; their subject area; the starting date of open access journals; the size and business models of open access publishers; the licensing models; the presence of an impact factor; the uptake of hybrid open access.Comment: Submitted to PLoS ON

Highlights from the SOAP project survey. What Scientists Think about Open Access Publishing

The SOAP (Study of Open Access Publishing) project has run a large-scale survey of the attitudes of researchers on, and the experiences with, open access publishing. Around forty thousands answers were collected across disciplines and around the world, showing an overwhelming support for the idea of open access, while highlighting funding and (perceived) quality as the main barriers to publishing in open access journals. This article serves as an introduction to the survey and presents this and other highlights from a preliminary analysis of the survey responses. To allow a maximal re-use of the information collected by this survey, the data are hereby released under a CC0 waiver, so to allow libraries, publishers, funding agencies and academics to further analyse risks and opportunities, drivers and barriers, in the transition to open access publishing.Comment: Data manual available at http://bit.ly/gI8nct Compressed CSV data file available at http://bit.ly/gSmm71 Alternative data formats: CSV http://bit.ly/ejuvKO XLS http://bit.ly/e6gE7o XLSX http://bit.ly/gTjyv

The Mind of God, Many and One

Evolution did not stop with life per se. At the very least it built brains from which sprang minds from which sprang consciousness, the greatest of the world’s many mysteries. This chapter takes up the question of brains, minds and consciousness. The not-so-surprising implication here, is that these greatest of creation’s wonders are also part of the story. No longer in long, slow, cycles of blind self-organization, somehow the Great Ordering Oneness found a way to build a system which consciously shapes the world and itself as if by plan. More self-aware and more potentially powerful than anything that has ever existed, thinking beings are a world-transforming force in their own right. There is, of course, a reason I haven’t mentioned much about mind. Mind is even more incomprehensible to clockwork thinkers than life. Early clockwork thinkers thought that we were merely separated, mind from body. Later ones described mind as an epi-phenomenon, an illusion of a few lifeless chemicals. After all, when you break brains down, there is no mind to be found. Traditional evolutionary theory has essentially ignored mind, preferring genes instead. All of this is likely to end in the relatively foreseeable future. Currents of change can already be seen. Once a taboo topic, consciousness is becoming an increasingly common subject in the popular press. Books such as The Celestine Prophecy, for instance, paint a picture of humanity reaching a new level of consciousness. People trapped in the cloying maze of modern reality, suddenly discover an invisible web of awareness growing within themselves and others. Individually and collectively, human beings are struggling precariously toward a new, more integral perception. The potential is high. So is the need. The birth of a new level of consciousness seems to be part and parcel of the project to save the world. Now, I am not going to tell a romantic tale of New Age seers in the Andes. I think it is important to stay more grounded than this, lest the realists in the audience run for the hills. Yet, I also believe there is a valid intuition behind such works. Books like The Celestine Prophecy are part of the same instinctive reaction to clockwork omissions seen elsewhere. Clockwork bleakness strikes again. Millions of highly educated people the world over now read such books and harbor secret hopes that they are true. Understanding the science behind this intuition, gives human hope a better foundation. Thus, brain researchers too are hoping that new understandings of consciousness will help bring about a global civilization which is less apt to destroy itself and the world. Their hope seems particularly reasonable since mind and consciousness are so central to the human condition. Indeed, I would make a stronger statement — one cannot understand our condition or our times without understanding the phenomenon of mind, including ways of looking at the world and patterns of collective knowing. Today, powerful new views are building which will have a profound affect on our sense of ourselves. They quite literally redefine what the human project is about. Not a lumbering automaton or a ruthless beast, here human beings (one and many) become the ultimate learning system, the finest and foremost spark of a learning world. That is the story that will unfold here, it will simply be much more integrated into the larger story of evolution than most people imagine. The theory of mind presented here is new in its fine points largely because I include the energy connection and other rarely-popularized points. Yet, the core image is again remarkably old. Mind is a natural, interwoven outcome of a much larger flow. What is interesting is its implications for our times