# The Unapologetic Mathematician

## Joint Meetings 2009 — day 2

Today was a little thin. I had to meet someone in the exhibit hall when it opened, and the talks I saw after that in the morning were sort of lackluster. After lunch I saw a couple topology and applied mathematics talks, but then had to head off for another meeting about a job prospect. After that rather than sticking around for Mikhail Khovanov’s invited address (I probably know what he’d say anyway), I decided to hit the metro and try to beat the beltway traffic.

One talk in the early morning caught my attention. David Clark talked about the functoriality of the $\mathfrak{sl}_3$ analogue of Khovanov homology (which is based around $\mathfrak{sl}_2$. The talk itself I don’t care to talk about much here, but I was glad to see that the first step was to pass from links to tangles, and to treat them as the natural setting. Now if I can just get the term “tangle covariant” to catch on…

Oh, I wasn’t able to join the Secret Blogging Seminar’s drinking tonight. Tomorrow night, however, I’m thinking I’ll be at Tryst. I’m done with special sessions by 6, and I’ll be wanting to have dinner of course. So I’ll say “8 PM”. Here’s a map.