A major project in set theory aims to explore the connection between large cardinals and so-called generic absoluteness principles, which assert that forcing notions from a certain class cannot change the truth value of (projective, for instance) statements about the real numbers. For example, in the 80s Kunen showed that absoluteness to ccc forcing extensions is equiconsistent with a weakly compact cardinal. More recently, Schindler showed that absoluteness to proper forcing extensions is equiconsistent with a remarkable cardinal. (Remarkable cardinals will be defined in the talk.) Schindler's proof does not resemble Kunen's, however, using almost-disjoint coding instead of Kunen's innovative method of coding along branchless trees. We show how to reconcile these two proofs, giving a new proof of Schindler's theorem that generalizes Kunen's methods and suggests further investigation of non-thin trees.

It is a classical topic dating back to Maclaurin (1698–1746) to study certain special points on smooth cubic plane curves, such as the 9 inflection points (Maclaurin and Hesse), the 27 sextatic points (Cayley), and the 72 points "of type 9" (Gattazzo). Motivated by these algebro-geometric constructions, we ask the following topological question: is it possible to choose n distinct points on a smooth cubic plane curve as the curve varies continuously in family, for any integer n other than 9, 27 and 72? We will present both constructions and obstructions to such continuous choices of points, state a classification theorem for them, and discuss conjectures and open questions.

In this talk, we will cover the basics of measurable cardinals and their relationship to non-trivial elementary embeddings.  We proceed with basic facts about the constructible universe, L.  After laying this groundwork, we show L cannot have a measurable cardinal.  Time permitting, we will discuss the dichotomy introduced by Jensen's covering lemma: either L is a good approximation to V, or there is a non-trivial elementary embedding from L to L.