As I mentioned before, I am teaching CS 121  at Harvard, and have written my own text, with the (not very original) title "Introduction to Theoretical Computer Science" . I am hoping for this text to turn into a published textbook in the next year or two. Toward this end, I would be grateful for any comments … Continue reading Call for comments: “Introduction to Theoretical Computer Science”

There is an old joke that an economist would not lift a $100 bill lying on the sidewalk, since in equilibrium it should not be there. But economist Bryan Caplan from George Mason University believes the world is leaving trillion dollars or so on the sidewalk. The culprit in his mind is education, which developed … Continue reading Short non-review of Caplan’s “Case Against Education”

Quanta magazine has an excellent article by Erica Klarreich on the recent progress on the 2 to 2 conjecture, which I have blogged about before.  The article does not go into the technical details, but gives a good perspective on what's been done and what are the challenges ahead. Eric Posner and Glen Weyl have a … Continue reading Some reading recommendations

(Announcement from Ilias Diakonikolas and David Kempe) We are pleased to announce that we will provide pooled, subsidized child care at STOC 2018. The cost will be $40 per day per child for regular conference attendees, and $20 per day per child for students. For more detailed information, including how to register for STOC 2018 childcare, … Continue reading Childcare at STOC 2018 “TheoryFest”

Mitali Bafna, Chi-Ning Chou, and Zhao Song wrote scribe notes for my lectures on the Dinur et al proof of the 2 to 2 conjecture (see the DKKMS  and KMS papers, though this presentation follows a different, and in my view simpler, approach.) "Scribe notes" is really an understatement. In a heroic work, Mitali, Chi-Ning and Zhao … Continue reading Lecture notes on DKKMS

Edith Cohen, Vitaly Feldman, Omer Reingold and Ronitt Rubinfeld wrote a pledge for inclusiveness in TCS. I think it is mostly common sense: saying that not just our universities, but also our conferences and workshops, are part of our workplace, and that we should strive for them to be free of harassment. But sometimes it … Continue reading Consider signing a pledge for inclusiveness in TCS

Update (4/15): Scribe notes are now up thanks to Mitali Bafna, Chi-Ning Chou, and Zhao Song. As I posted before, recently Khot, Minzer and Safra posted a manuscript which is the culmination of a beautiful line of work, initiated by the same authors, and completes the proof of (the imperfect completeness variant of) Khot's 2 … Continue reading On the recent proof of the 2-to-2 conjecture

In the U.S., we have almost no research masters programs. We only admit students into a Ph.D. Overall it works well, but it requires us to be very conservative in our admissions, since we are committing to have the student come for 5 years or so. This can be a particular issue for students that … Continue reading Research masters

In an earlier post I asked if we have TCS "Harvey Weinsteins". Unfortunately academia is hardly immune from sexual harassment and now a  TCS researcher posted about her experiences with sexual harassment and assault in our community. While this is not pleasant reading, it is important, and I urge you to read the full post … Continue reading #metootcs