Some Comments on Branes, G-flux, and K-theory

This is a summary of a talk at Strings2000 explaining three ways in which string theory and M-theory are related to the mathematics of K-theory.Comment: 10pp., late

On Consistent Boundary Conditions for c=1 String Theory

We introduce a new parametrisation for the Fermi sea of the $c = 1$ matrix model. This leads to a simple derivation of the scattering matrix, and a calculation of boundary corrections in the corresponding $1+1$--dimensional string theory. The new parametrisation involves relativistic chiral fields, rather than the non-relativistic fields of the usual formulations. The calculation of the boundary corrections, following recent work of Polchinski, allows us to place restrictions on the boundary conditions in the matrix model. We provide a consistent set of boundary conditions, but believe that they need to be supplemented by some more subtle relationship between the space-time and matrix model. Inspired by these boundary conditions, some thoughts on the black hole in $c=1$ string theory are presented.Comment: 13 pages, 2 postscript figures include

Gauge Invariant Matrix Model for the \^A-\^D-\^E Closed Strings

The models of triangulated random surfaces embedded in (extended) Dynkin diagrams are formulated as a gauge-invariant matrix model of Weingarten type. The double scaling limit of this model is described by a collective field theory with nonpolynomial interaction. The propagator in this field theory is essentially two-loop correlator in the corresponding string theory.Comment: 9 pages, SPhT/92-09

Place and space in early Burma: a new look at ‘Pyu Culture'

Ancient Burma (Myanmar) is commonly split into Upper Burma ‘Pyu’ and Lower Burma Mon cultures, an ethnic classification of walled site cultures in the Irrawaddy (Ayeyarwaddy) basin that began with fourth to ninth century C.E. scripts. The early Buddhist archaeology, however, points to multiple groups and spreads far beyond the Irrawaddy drainage system. The Mon typology has profitably been unravelled in Aung-Thwin’s controversial study (2005), but, while his advocacy of the Pyu primacy has been questioned, rudimentary definitions of the first millennium C.E. ‘Pyu culture’ have remained largely unchallenged. The blinkered results of text primacy in defining ethnicity and cultural identity are addressed here, with data from recent discoveries used to identify a relational engagement between the brick walls and terracotta urns typical of early Buddhist cultures in Upper Burma. This localised integration of spatial and spiritual factors is further strengthened by a range of artefacts and indigenous texts

Representations of laboratory animals in popular media forms

Attitudes to animals are in part formed through engagement with popular culture and therefore we should pay attention to the potential of this domain for shaping animal lives. But can popular culture really do anything for the ‘laboratory’ animal? This paper explores the persistent and changing deployment of the laboratory animal in a range of humorous popular media (and cultural) texts, and suggests that its appearance in comedy could provide a useful means to reach an otherwise reluctant audience

Dawei Buddhist culture: a hybrid borderland

Dawei is both hybrid and borderland, its Buddhist culture a stylistic and territorial puzzle. Far from the ‘heartland’ yet passed from one major polity to another over the centuries, its pagodas and monasteries provided a physical and aesthetic means to asserted distance and accommodate ‘other’. Some objects and ideas were imported; others grafted the new onto local forms to produce hybrid styles, while others are uniquely local. Is Dawei culture similarity or a new unification of the cultural diversity of Pyu, Bagan, Sri Lanka, Sukhothai and Ayutthaya? This report argues the contrary, that Dawei resilience in the face of continual threats sustained a local cultural personality that has survived until the present. The question is addressed by first classifying the sites of Dawei into four cultural zones and then discussing the extraordinary range of artefacts from these zones by material. This is preceded by a chronological summary to illustrate the often turbulent history and local chronicles