Showing posts with label math. Show all posts
Showing posts with label math. Show all posts

Friday, July 23, 2021

A surprisingly good talk ...

... on the Mandelbrot set (the poster child of fractals), aimed at the interested layperson. A vague memory of high school math will easily suffice.

I say "surprisingly" because this is a talk given by an out loud and proud fundie. It's a pity that he's such a god-botherer, because in the parts where he's not proselytizing, it's as good as any that I've seen on this topic. I actually learned a few things myself.

So, recommendation: skip the first few moments, and then watch up till ~22:00.

I watched a little beyond the recommended end point. I had to laugh at how this guy believes in atoms and Kepler's laws for describing planetary motion, not to mention his innate faith in the output of his computer, but nonetheless insists that "the planets were created on day 4," and that all of the amazing math he had earlier been talking about was "waiting for us to discover it for 6000 years."

I gave up at ~41:00, when it seemed clear that the downward trend had become monotonic. The True Believer's arrogance of certainty always grates. And when he started sniping about the theory of evolution, I found it about as impressive as what you'd find from the supporters in the comments section under a Ray Comfort/Kirk Cameron banana video.

In conclusion: Yes, there are things that amaze and astound us, in and about the world and the universe in which we live. I completely agree that we do not know how to explain many of these things. However, that is no reason not to try. Just throwing up your hands and saying "god did it" is nothing more than an argument from incredulity. [1] It is no different from the claim that volcanoes erupt because we haven't thrown enough young women into them.

(x-posted on the FB)


[1] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity

Saturday, February 22, 2014

An animated puzzle

Swiped from Jake VanderPlas:

Monday, April 29, 2013

How long now?

I still remember the ongoing furor back then, even years after publication: was this really a proof?

Since the time of Euclid and Pythagoras, proofs of mathematical theorems had consisted of long strings of equations or geometric notations that any mathematician could read and quibble with, all marching logically, step by step, toward a conclusion. But the proof that Dr. Appel and a colleague, Wolfgang Haken, established in 1976 was of a different order.

Their conclusion, that four colors would suffice for any map, depended on 1,200 hours of computer time — the equivalent of 50 days — and 10 billion logical decisions all made automatically and out of sight by the innards of an I.B.M. computer at the University of Illinois in Urbana.

I'd love to know how long it would take to rerun this proof on some of today's machines. The answer is probably out there, but I'm too tired to go Googling right now.

RIP, Kenneth Appel. You did a bold and very good thing.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Remember Spirograph?

Check this out.

(In case it's not obvious, you can drag the horizontal bar upwards, to show more of the bottom panel and less of the top.)

(h/t: Hacker Newsletter #144)

Friday, April 12, 2013

"A non-mathematical explanation of one way functions"

Shoutout to John Graham-Cumming for a very good explanation by analogy. Even if the title sounds forbidding, give it a look, along with the follow-up.

I'd add that, in case you didn't already know, if you do anything online, you rely on one-way functions all the time.

(h/t: StatusCode, issue 27)

Wednesday, March 06, 2013

Nerd Alert: "Numberplay"

I just noticed that Wordplay, "The Crossword Blog of the New York Times," has a weekly feature called Numberplay, which some of you might be interested in.

There's, like, actual math involved. Take for example the latest post, "The Gambling Machine Puzzle."

This week’s puzzle was suggested by mathematician Nelson Blachman, [...]

[...]

Dr. Blachman told me he liked this week’s puzzle because “its solution required some ingenuity but only simple probability theory to start with. Evaluating the expected payoff from the optimum (or any other) strategy, however, needed a tiny bit of integral calculus.”

"Only simple" probability theory!?!!? "A tiny bit of" integral calculus?!!!

The very idea that the New York Times is for once not liberally-artsishly going all "I CAN'T EVEN BALANCE MY CHECKBOOK LOL" is something to savor and salute.

Something else to savor and salute, from Nelson Blachman's website: the bookend entries on his list of publications:

``The System of Microstresses in Cold-Worked Metal,'' Physical Review 70 (9, 10), 698-704 (November 1 and 15, 1946) (baccalaureate dissertation).

``Three Tangent Circles' Incircle,'' The Mathematical Scientist 37.2, 151-153 (December 2012).

Emph. added.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Nerd pr0n!

Hands-on fractals!

And next time we're in L.A., we've got to check out the Institute For Figuring.

(previously)

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

What, you don't need any differentiators?

But really, a gig as security guard at the Museum of Mathematics? DREAM JOB.



(h/t: MK, via email)

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Friday, August 24, 2012

At first I thought it said "math"

Nothing that bad, though.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Hey, look! An online calculator!!!1!

Snark aside, I like it. Nice to have the option, even if I'll probably still just type in what I want to calculate.

You know that you can use Google for a calculator, right? Well, check out this new wrinkle.

(h/t: KAPT_Kipper)

Friday, March 16, 2012

Round pegs need not apply

Just happened across this bit of coolness. (Don't crank your speakers or earbuds. There is no sound.)

(alt. video link)

Thanks for posting, jbmathfunnew.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Interactive Infographic?

Whatever it is, it's way cool: Version 2 of the Huang's Scale of the Universe.

(h/t: IMT)

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Twitter bio of the day: @tabatkins

I put my pants on one leg at a time. If I had more legs, though, you'd see my approach is actually O(log n).
    -- (╯°□°)╯︵ɹſsuıʞʇ∀qɐ┴

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Awww. (Plus, they're math nerds!)

From Suzy Allman's NYT slideshow:

“We planned to make a “17” together, because we couldn’t find a Lin jersey. They’re all sold out.” — Jonathan Palmieri with Melissa Magner, both of Linden, N.J.

(h/t: KK)

Saturday, January 14, 2012

These links presented as a public service

See Vali Chandrasekaran's one-pager titled "Correlation or Causation?"

Of course, that won't settle every argument in forums on the Internet (that's why we call them wingnuts, after all), but you'll immediately have every sane reader on your side.

Hat tip: Tedra Osell. And via Cosma Shalizi in Comments under that post, see this. But be careful! You could waste all day playing with it!

Monday, December 12, 2011

6174

A visualization of the Kaprekar sequence for four digit numbers, due, apparently, to D. Deutsch and B. Goldman, 2004

(embiggen)



Take any four-digit number in which at least two of the digits are different. Put the digits in descending order to make one new number, put them in ascending order to make another. Subtract the smaller from the larger. Apply the same process to the result. Use leading zeros, if necessary, to make the subtraction results into four-digit numbers. Keep doing that until you reach the obvious stopping point. Bet I can guess what your final number is!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Spooky! (well, for math nerds it is)

John Barrow's lecture on continued fractions, which I finished watching three hours ago, still has the hairs on my neck and forearms gibbering about.

Visit the link above for the transcript and/or the slides. (Or just click those links, obvs.) You'll almost certainly want the latter, if the talk grabs your attention at all.

And remember:

Three out of two people have trouble with fractions


[Added] I see by looking at the transcript that the lecture stems from Barrow's article published in Issue 11 of Plus Magazine, "Chaos in Numberland: The secret life of continued fractions."

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Drop back ten and pun

Stop winning the Internet, Randall Munroe.


(Click the pic to visit the source and see the hover text for another hint.)

(A short math refresher in the Comments.) ←a link I do not actually expect anyone to click.

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