Bristol

This week finds me in Bristol, in southwest England. I'm here for a weeklong summer school officially titled the Building Bridges: 2nd EU/US Summer School on Automorphic Forms and Related Topics (catchy title!). The summer school comprises of three mini-courses run by pairs of mathematicians in the area of mathematics that I'm in; it's also being co-organized by of of the mentors of my Google Summer of Code project, who is resident here in England. Thus attending will be a great way to kill multiple birds with one stone: learn some new and cool math, see a new place, and get to chat to people relating to my GSoC project as well.

As such, posts on analytic rank estimation of elliptic curves and $L$-functions might be a bit thin on the ground this week. I'll try do a little bit when I can, but they're keeping us fairly busy here.

Bristol, from what I've seen of it so far, is quite beautiful. The sun has been shining this week (which always helps), but the part of town that I'm staying in - the recently revitalized Docklands area - is clean, picturesque, and buzzing with activity. The city has pushed for sustainability and pedestrian-friendliness in recent years, and it shows.

All in all, can't complain. I think it will be a wonderful week.