The School of Underlying Conditions has published a prospectus inviting students to take up topology and set theory where the School already works, in the field and at the bench.
A new brochure sets topology and set theory beside the core tray, the soil pit and the bore line
Mathematics at Slop University has acquired an address below ground level. Well-Founded: Topology and set theory in the School of Underlying Conditions, a prospectus released today, invites prospective students to take up the foundations of mathematics in the place the University already goes to find out what things rest on.
The brochure is organised around four ideas a first-year topology or set theory course would recognise — connectedness, continuity, the boundary and the well-founded — and pairs each with a strand of the School’s established field and laboratory practice. In doing so it positions the School’s earth sciences capability as a natural home for abstract enquiry, and aligns the proof-and-definition tradition with an applied, sample-led research posture across three of the University’s schools.
Putting the brochure together, we found the School had been doing set theory for some time without telling anyone, least of all ourselves. It seemed only fair to let applicants in on it.
— Dr Vigdis Emenike, Senior Lecturer, School of Underlying Conditions
The School sees the publication as a quiet extension of its standing interest in what lies beneath, carried this time all the way down to the axioms. Associate Professor Ragnhild Uzoma, Lead of the Basement Relations Group, and Dr Brynjar Obiora, Senior Research Fellow, contributed to the brochure alongside Dr Emenike, and Dr Obiora described its reception within the School as “settled, in the best sense of the word”.
The prospectus also gathers five recent papers from across the University into a reading list for applicants, so that the ideas it sets out can be followed into the published record.
The full brochure is available from the University’s research repository under an open licence, doi:10.5555/slop.6ycdxr.