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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 -
The Era of 1-bit LLMs: All Large Language Models are in 1.58 Bits
21 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 -
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 -
Qalculate! - the ultimate desktop calculator
42 votes -
Y'all are nerds (according to math)
8 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 -
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 -
Obituary - Evelyn Boyd Granville, mathematician and programmer, space-flight trailblazer (1924—2023)
15 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 -
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 -
Seximal: a better way to count
24 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 -
The network of collaboration among rappers and its community structure
9 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 -
The insane engineering of MRI machines
3 votes -
GradIEEEnt half decent: The hidden power of imprecise lines
9 votes -
An aperiodic monotile exists!
21 votes -
Explore a universe of numbers and arithmetic in our new interactive math game, Hyperjumps!
3 votes -
The story behind the Packing Chromatic paper
5 votes -
Shipping graphing calculator
3 votes -
Mathematics and chess
3 votes -
KeenType 1.0.0
6 votes -
Once a millennium alignment of all three norths
5 votes -
Why the super rich are inevitable?
14 votes -
How do fireflies flash in sync? Studies suggest a new answer.
3 votes -
KeenWrite 2.10.0: R meets TeX
4 votes -
RIP: Kathleen Booth, the inventor of assembly language
23 votes -
A climate love story
3 votes -
The more gender equality, the fewer women in STEM
14 votes -
Why are quintic equations not solvable? - the Galois theory approach
3 votes -
Penrose Unilluminable Room is a room with mirrored walls that can't be fully illuminated by a single point source of light
3 votes -
How cryptocurrencies actually work
7 votes -
The hyperbolic geometry of DMT experiences
7 votes -
Repulsive Curves
4 votes -
Why everyone ignored the world's best mathematician
4 votes -
A mathematician explains what Foundation gets right about predicting the future
5 votes -
How do I calculate my family's "average family location"?
So, I just listened to a This American Life podcast called Ghost in the Machine. In one of the stories, a man decides to calculate, every week, the Average Family Location of his family. By that,...
So, I just listened to a This American Life podcast called Ghost in the Machine. In one of the stories, a man decides to calculate, every week, the Average Family Location of his family. By that, he means: once you add everyone's coordinates for every coordinate in which they've been in that period, what city/location represents the average point between them all?
I decided to do the same for my family, which will be much easier because there are no touring musicians among us. The one complication is that a good chunk of the family is on other continents, and I wouldn't want us to "meet" in the middle of the ocean. So some approximation might be warranted.
I'd be happy if someone could provide me the math, I'm fairly confident I would be able to do it with a calculator or maybe put into some crude Python. I don't think I need to make a weekly report, since we're not that mobile. Maybe twice a year, or once every two months.
Thanks!
Edit: I don't know much math
Edit2: holy shit this is not simple at all! Now I feel kinda bad for throwing this problem at you guys. I really thought it would be quick and easy!
9 votes -
I need cool facts about huge numbers
So, my 5-year-old nephew is obsessed with huge numbers, especially named numbers such as googol, duodecillion, and centillion. The other day I spent some time reciting these numbers to him, and...
So, my 5-year-old nephew is obsessed with huge numbers, especially named numbers such as googol, duodecillion, and centillion. The other day I spent some time reciting these numbers to him, and trying (and failing) to describe them. What I need are some cool facts about these numbers, such as "there are 1 quadrillion cat hairs in the world", or "there are not enough stars in the universe to fill one googol".
Besides math, his main interests are super-heroes and, apparently, cars.
I'm not a math or physics guy, so hopefully you guys can help me cheat :P
12 votes -
Integrating using light
9 votes -
The most powerful computers you've never heard of
6 votes -
Ordering movie credits with graph theory
6 votes -
Bertrand's Paradox (with 3blue1brown)
1 vote -
Alice, Bob, and the average shadow of a cube
4 votes -
Hiding images in plain sight: the physics of magic windows
5 votes -
The Eighteenth Elephant
6 votes -
JMathTeX
4 votes -
Lehmer Factor Stencils: A paper factoring machine before computers
2 votes -
Mathematician answers chess problem about attacking queens
8 votes -
Analytic Number Theory book club ending today
3 votes -
Our next trip to integer partitions
2 votes -
Our trip to the prime number theorem
9 votes -
Could you avoid being hit by a laser if you were in a room of mirrors?
2 votes -
Squaring primes: Why all prime numbers >3 squared are one off a multiple of 24
10 votes -
The simplest math problem no one can solve
10 votes -
Three months in Monte Carlo
4 votes -
Math Person
5 votes -
I need help with a story that involves math
I'm creating the concept for a story called The Little Differences. It's about an accountant that, one day, out of the blue, notices that a certain calculation is producing a slightly wrong...
I'm creating the concept for a story called The Little Differences. It's about an accountant that, one day, out of the blue, notices that a certain calculation is producing a slightly wrong result. Barely noticeable, nothing world-changing,
He runs it on the computer, tries different software, a physical calculator... everything gives a result that's a little off. When he checks on paper himself, he gets the correct result. But, to his surprise, everyone else tells him that he's the one that's off, and that the incorrect result is actually perfectly sound.
I need something that makes sense, mathematically. The weird result must be something that really is wrong, and not just something that programs sometimes get wrong (I don't want it to be explained at all... I mean, the reason why it is occurring must not be something easily reducible to some well-known malfunction). But it must also be minor enough for someone to miss, something that wouldn't really cause much trouble in the real world (is that possible? IDK).
Lastly: it must be something that I'm able to explain (on some level) to a non-math reader.
So, Tildes math wizzes, what you suggest? :D
17 votes -
California will discourage students who are gifted at math
16 votes -
Before you answer, consider the opposite possibility
8 votes -
TeXMe Demo: Self-rendering Markdown + MathJax documents
6 votes -
MathBox^2: PowerPoint Must Die
10 votes -
The unparalleled genius of John von Neumann
13 votes -
How the slowest computer programs illuminate math’s fundamental limits
8 votes -
Imaginary numbers may be essential for describing reality
5 votes