Departmental Picnics, Operator Algebras and why Calrson wins over Calculus at this stage

 Next week will hopefully be the last mid sems of my life, soon after will be the last end sems and in the months following that will be my Comprehensive exams, marking the end of my exam-taking career. This looks so exciting, much life before the class 12 boards, which marked the end of my school career, but exactly like the last time my mind has raced ahead and my motivation to study for these exams is zero. Haven't yet even tried to open the textbooks. I usually spend my time reading for my research or for pleasure these days. Some Wizards of Waverly Place thrown in between, or recommendation (see balckmal) of DD, for good measure.

This is just as the post exam phrase I had previously described. Mind is a poet, and as they say, "जहाँ न पहुँचे रवि, वहाँ पहुँचे कवि. And indeed, the Sun is bound by the laws of time and is scheduled to rise about 200 times to meet the temporal place my mind has occupied as of present, 

I think despite all the warnings from seniors, Algebraic Topology is easier than expected. Currently, we are following Munkres for the Homotopy part, and after middsems another text will be followed for the Homology part. Perhaps it is so because we learnt a lot more than required stuff about fundamental groups in our first topology course. Anyway, one subject being easier is good. As for Operator Theory, while the syllabus for the course looks like this:

Compact operators on Hilbert Spaces. (a) Fredholm Theory (b) Index, C*-algebras - noncommutative states and representations, Gelfand-Neumark representation theorem, Von-Neumann Algebras; Projections, Double Commutant theorem, L∞ functionalCalculus, Toeplitz operators

In reality, due to a combination of department politics and egos of people involved, the course has morphed into some combination of Operator Algebra and von Neumann Algebra and Harmonic Analysis course following the legacy of VS Sundar, being mostly taught from Stratila & Zsido's Lectures on von Neumann Algebras and Javier's Fourier Analysis. This feels like a betrayal. The same politics have led to WCNH attendee list looking like a family picnic of certain academicians. The Douglas clan is evidently not invited. The ugly departmental politics aside, I have been a bad picker of electives anyway. 

On a side note, I had to cancel the prospective Sampablpur trip due to clashing with the exams. Now looking at the Mini workshop: Cantor set & Brownian motion at IISER Berhampur at the end of March. Anyway, ranting over, I do need to look at those vNA notes, but only after a few more hours with Carleson (1962) whose end is now in sight.