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8 votes
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New Foundations is consistent - a difficult mathematical proof proved computationally using Lean
10 votes -
The Hydra game
6 votes -
Bizarre traveling flame discovery
11 votes -
Not every student needs Algebra 2. UC should be flexible on math requirement.
21 votes -
The magic of the blackboard
6 votes -
The Minecraft boat-drop mystery
7 votes -
The mystery of spinors
4 votes -
Happy Tau/2 day everyone!
22 votes -
The oldest unsolved problem in math. Do odd perfect numbers exist?
11 votes -
Sampling: What Nyquist didn’t say, and what to do about it
10 votes -
The beautiful maths which makes 5G faster than 4G, faster than 3G, faster than…
12 votes -
The Era of 1-bit LLMs: All Large Language Models are in 1.58 Bits
21 votes -
How a Kalman filter works, in pictures
17 votes -
Citation cartels help some mathematicians—and their universities—climb the rankings
8 votes -
Mathematician and game enthusiast Marcus du Sautoy discusses the iconic game of Risk
13 votes -
How to build an origami computer
7 votes -
How would you teach math differently to young kids if budget was not a concern?
It seems to me we teach kids math in a way that prioritizes mass teaching and resource management over the actual learning of mathematical concepts. We rely on paper and pencil, and maybe some...
It seems to me we teach kids math in a way that prioritizes mass teaching and resource management over the actual learning of mathematical concepts.
We rely on paper and pencil, and maybe some limited manipulatives like unit blocks, and there’s 1 teacher for every 15-30 kids or so.
What are some methods that might work better to establish a strong understanding of math if we were able to approach it differently?
Or what are some methods that have been proven to work in other settings and why are they able to be successful?
38 votes -
God and the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics
26 votes -
Any good Youtube channels on learning Data Structures and Algorithms, especially the math part?
Hello Tildes, I am currently taking DSA in college and struggling a lot with the math and algorithms. Recently had to solve Karatsuba questions and I don't even know what I wrote down on the...
Hello Tildes,
I am currently taking DSA in college and struggling a lot with the math and algorithms. Recently had to solve Karatsuba questions and I don't even know what I wrote down on the paper. I have been trying to look for videos on this and only really came away with a vague understanding.
What I've noticed is that I struggle with solving the math part of the questions.
For example: "Describe a divide and conquer algorithm to compute the square
of an n-digit integer in O(n log3 5) time, by reducing to the squaring of five [n/3]-digit
integers"I have zero clue how I am supposed to understand the latter half of the question. It makes no sense to me beyond I am supposed to be multiplying squared numbers. How do I even begin to turn this into an algorithm? What is the solution even supposed to look like?
Needless to say, I've struggled with math my entire life and I've been trying for years to be decent with it, and I have nothing to show for it.
So, do you have any recommendations that could simplify the math needed for DSA? Videos are preferred but I will textbook recommendations as well.
Thank you, and have a good day!
18 votes -
Y'all are nerds (according to math)
8 votes -
Qalculate! - the ultimate desktop calculator
42 votes -
Egyptian fractions and the greedy algorithm
6 votes -
What is a math department worth?
25 votes -
A brief history of tricky mathematical tiling
10 votes -
Maths anxiety
12 votes -
The humbling of the maths snobs
10 votes -
Can YOU win rock, paper, scissors against Grey? 99.9999999% will fail.
40 votes -
Polyhedra world
8 votes -
Quantum Computing Since Democritus
7 votes -
The inability to count correctly: Debunking the US National Institute of Standards and Technology's calculation of the cryptographic security level of Kyber-512
25 votes -
The Lindy Effect (Toby Ord)
3 votes -
The early history of counting
6 votes -
Knot theory: How the most useless branch of math could save your life
15 votes -
Obituary - Evelyn Boyd Granville, mathematician and programmer, space-flight trailblazer (1924—2023)
15 votes -
Are there politics in mathematics?
Curious if there are movements within the governance or research pertaining to the field that act to promote or suppress certain ideas? Was watching the “Infinity explained in 5 different levels”...
Curious if there are movements within the governance or research pertaining to the field that act to promote or suppress certain ideas? Was watching the “Infinity explained in 5 different levels” and thought… maybe there are trends for or against interpretations and/or abstractions that get a rise in people…
33 votes -
Teaching myself calculus at sixty-five
24 votes -
Steffen's polyhedron is a flexible concave polyhedron. Euler thought such a shape was impossible. I also show infinitesimally flexible polyhedrons and bistable polyhedrons.
13 votes -
The Fibonacci Matrix
12 votes -
The game of Set (and some variations)
14 votes -
California needs real math education: an essay
16 votes -
The network of collaboration among rappers and its community structure
9 votes -
Any good math textbook/book recommendations
I would like to get slightly more educated in mathematics again - I took some basic calculus and linear algebra classes while doing my degree, but most likely forgot what I learned for the most...
I would like to get slightly more educated in mathematics again - I took some basic calculus and linear algebra classes while doing my degree, but most likely forgot what I learned for the most part. Are there any good books that you guys would recommend for someone who wants to learn math again?
13 votes -
Can you set a clock using a light sensor to detect sunrise and sunset?
While pondering an off-grid microcontroller project, I got to wondering: A light sensor can obviously detect day vs night. So it could be used as a very cheap way to set a device's clock - but how...
While pondering an off-grid microcontroller project, I got to wondering: A light sensor can obviously detect day vs night. So it could be used as a very cheap way to set a device's clock - but how accurately? To within an hour? A few minutes? How would you do it?
Questions that arose from this include:
- Should it detect dawn/dusk (light <-> dark transition), or noon/midnight (brighest/darkest time) ?
- How do dawn/dusk times relate to clock time? Does it depend on lat/long?
- If using dawn/dusk, what light level threshold to use?
- The same threshold for dawn & dusk, or different ones?
- Better to detect a darker threshold (start of dawn, end of dusk) or a lighter one?
- Some days will be lighter/darker than others, so how to manage averaging of times?
- How accurate could it be made?
My naïve first stab at this would be: Pick a light threshold. Record the dawn/dusk times according to that threshold. Average them, call that "noon", and gradually tweak the clock time over several days to bring it into line with the sensed/calculated "noon" - but a searching for graphs of sunrise/sunset times quickly showed that the midpoint of sunrise & sunset is not noon.
Googling threw up lots of results for sensor lights combining a clock and a photocell, but I couldn't find anything about using the photocell to set the clock. So does anyone know if this has been tried before? Is it a non-starter for some reason?
Edit:
Perhaps it's worth sharing the project I had in mind, which is a rain alarm so I can rush out and get the washing in from the line when it starts to rain. I was thinking how annoying it would be if I left it switched on and it rained in the middle of the night and the alarm woke me up. So I decided should automatically avoid triggering during the sleeping hours of night (say 10pm to 8am). My first thought was a photocell so it wouldn't trigger when it's dark. Then I remembered that it gets light at 3am at the moment, which wouldn't work. So it needs a clock. How to set the clock:
- Manually - Needs a user interface with buttons and a display. Seems overkill just for a clock.
- Serial port - Clunky to plug a laptop in just to set the clock.
- WiFi - Needs a username and password or WPS, and an ESP32 or similar - again seems overkill just to get the time.
- GPS - also overkill and expensive.
19 votes -
Seximal: a better way to count
24 votes -
History of transcendental numbers
7 votes -
Numerically Stable RWKV Language Model
11 votes -
The spool paradox
4 votes -
UK hobbyist discovers new unique shapes, stunning mathematicians
17 votes -
The derivative isn't what you think it is
8 votes