Avi Wigderson, 2021 Abel prize laureate, has made many seminal contributions to theoretical computer science and mathematics. With Yael Kalai, Ran Raz, Salil Vadhan & Nisheeth Vishnoi , we wrote an overview of his works arxiv.org/abs/2307.09524

For more than 50 years, complexity theorists have tried and failed to solve the foundational question of their field. Why is it so hard to prove hardness? Ben Brubaker reports: quantamagazine.org/complexity-the…

Some really great articles from Ben Brubaker about complexity recently!!

Our Columbia CS department is hiring in all areas of CS this year, for multiple tenure-track and lecturer positions. Be sure to apply!! cs.columbia.edu/open-positions/

My friends and I (mostly my friends) made another online puzzle hunt! It launched a few days ago, but you can start any time over the next couple weeks. I think it's relatively accessible to less-experienced puzzlers. Check it out if you like puzzles or strategy card games :)

Should be really excellent! Check it out if you're a grad student interested in learning more about fine-grained complexity!

Great news! Also check out the quanta article quantamagazine.org/avi-wigderson-…

Ryan's hugely influential work using algorithms to prove lower bounds wins the 2024 Gödel Prize! Congrats Ryan Williams @rrwilliams.bsky.social!!

simons.berkeley.edu/events/new-dir…

A number of people (grad students in particular) said they enjoyed my talk at ICALP. So maybe you'll like it too. A little unusual, it's about how/why I ended up working on circuit complexity. youtube.com/live/0DrFB2Cp7… (Skipping the ceremonial stuff that happened before the talk)

I was blown away by Amir Abboud’s anecdote: they suspected that All Pairs Max Flow on undirected graphs must admit a subcubic algo since known FGC tricks to reduce APSP to UAPMF failed — they found a problem ripe for better algos guided by the library of tools developed in FGC.

We put together another Galactic Puzzle Hunt that starts tomorrow afternoon and will be running for the next 10 days. It's free to play, all online, and (hopefully) fun even if you only try it for a short time. Check it out and solve our puzzles! 2024.galacticpuzzlehunt.com

New paper proving that many important tasks solved by transformers can't be done in subquadratic time. Sorry Linear Transformers, Mamba and all the others. arxiv.org/abs/2410.04271 By Josh Alman and Hantao Yu.

We're restarting NY Theory Day, and have a really fantastic lineup of speakers! Come check it out if you're nearby :) sites.google.com/view/nyctheory…

What a time for Columbia University Athletics. Earlier today, Columbia Football clinched its first Ivy League championship since … 1961. Tonight, Columbia Men’s Basketball improves to 7-0 on the season after a blowout of Stony Brook. The last time the program was 7-0? It was 1969. History in NYC!

NY Theory Day is returning on Friday April 11 at Columbia! It's free to attend but you have to register on the website by April 4. We have a great speaker lineup: Rachel Cummings (Columbia) Bill Kuszmaul (CMU) Nick Spooner (Cornell) Ryan Williams (MIT) sites.google.com/view/nyctheory…