Mathos
@mathos1234.bsky.social
Interested in mathematical and other puzzles.
"If you cannot solve the proposed problem do not let this failure afflict you too much but try to find consolation with some easier success, try to solve first some related problem" -- G Polya
"If you cannot solve the proposed problem do not let this failure afflict you too much but try to find consolation with some easier success, try to solve first some related problem" -- G Polya
Reposted by Mathos
Carl Sagan when asked, "Are you a Socialist?"
April 21, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Carl Sagan when asked, "Are you a Socialist?"
Reposted by Mathos
Reposted by Mathos
Thread (1/5)
This thread shows a neat way of answering a question which comes up in university entrance interviews.
(Apologies for the lack of alt text -- I can't do symbols)
This thread shows a neat way of answering a question which comes up in university entrance interviews.
(Apologies for the lack of alt text -- I can't do symbols)
January 8, 2025 at 10:41 AM
Thread (1/5)
This thread shows a neat way of answering a question which comes up in university entrance interviews.
(Apologies for the lack of alt text -- I can't do symbols)
This thread shows a neat way of answering a question which comes up in university entrance interviews.
(Apologies for the lack of alt text -- I can't do symbols)
Reposted by Mathos
February 17, 2025 at 7:35 PM
Reposted by Mathos
Old friend just laid off by USDA, 1 mos short of his probationary period as senior researcher. Brilliant person who left a tenured faculty position several yrs ago to join USDA. Bright early-career researchers also being laid off. USDA is terminating a generation of highly-qualified scientists.
February 17, 2025 at 2:17 AM
Old friend just laid off by USDA, 1 mos short of his probationary period as senior researcher. Brilliant person who left a tenured faculty position several yrs ago to join USDA. Bright early-career researchers also being laid off. USDA is terminating a generation of highly-qualified scientists.
Reposted by Mathos
Scientists, as well as bureaucrats.
This is the head of OMB, folks. He coauthored Project 2025. This is the playbook we are seeing with the attacks on DEI efforts, on healthcare, on NSF and NIH funding.
They want us out of the way so they can destroy many institutions and resegregate the rest.
This is the head of OMB, folks. He coauthored Project 2025. This is the playbook we are seeing with the attacks on DEI efforts, on healthcare, on NSF and NIH funding.
They want us out of the way so they can destroy many institutions and resegregate the rest.
“We Want the Bureaucrats to Be Traumatically Affected”
YouTube video by ProPublica
www.youtube.com
February 8, 2025 at 11:50 PM
Scientists, as well as bureaucrats.
This is the head of OMB, folks. He coauthored Project 2025. This is the playbook we are seeing with the attacks on DEI efforts, on healthcare, on NSF and NIH funding.
They want us out of the way so they can destroy many institutions and resegregate the rest.
This is the head of OMB, folks. He coauthored Project 2025. This is the playbook we are seeing with the attacks on DEI efforts, on healthcare, on NSF and NIH funding.
They want us out of the way so they can destroy many institutions and resegregate the rest.
Reposted by Mathos
1. From morning EST to evening PST, I receive an email roughly once every three minutes. Overnight the pace slows, but not all that much. If I did nothing but read email and reply 12 hours a day I could probably keep up.
A once-wonderful productivity technology is killing any hope of productivity.
A once-wonderful productivity technology is killing any hope of productivity.
January 10, 2025 at 4:59 PM
1. From morning EST to evening PST, I receive an email roughly once every three minutes. Overnight the pace slows, but not all that much. If I did nothing but read email and reply 12 hours a day I could probably keep up.
A once-wonderful productivity technology is killing any hope of productivity.
A once-wonderful productivity technology is killing any hope of productivity.
Thread (1/5)
This thread shows a neat way of answering a question which comes up in university entrance interviews.
(Apologies for the lack of alt text -- I can't do symbols)
This thread shows a neat way of answering a question which comes up in university entrance interviews.
(Apologies for the lack of alt text -- I can't do symbols)
January 8, 2025 at 10:41 AM
Thread (1/5)
This thread shows a neat way of answering a question which comes up in university entrance interviews.
(Apologies for the lack of alt text -- I can't do symbols)
This thread shows a neat way of answering a question which comes up in university entrance interviews.
(Apologies for the lack of alt text -- I can't do symbols)
Reposted by Mathos
That may be ok for a conversational partner, but it's a really bad thing for search and retrieval, let alone for conducting scientific analysis.
So yeah, you typed the same query I did and got a different result. That hardly a rousing endorsement of an information system.
So yeah, you typed the same query I did and got a different result. That hardly a rousing endorsement of an information system.
December 31, 2024 at 7:39 PM
That may be ok for a conversational partner, but it's a really bad thing for search and retrieval, let alone for conducting scientific analysis.
So yeah, you typed the same query I did and got a different result. That hardly a rousing endorsement of an information system.
So yeah, you typed the same query I did and got a different result. That hardly a rousing endorsement of an information system.
Reposted by Mathos
Yet more from the @quantamagazine.bsky.social archives: always useful in #cryptography to know more about primes! www.quantamagazine.org/a-numerical-...
A Numerical Mystery From the 19th Century Finally Gets Solved | Quanta Magazine
Two mathematicians have proven Patterson’s conjecture, which was designed to explain a strange pattern in sums involving prime numbers.
www.quantamagazine.org
December 31, 2024 at 7:26 PM
Yet more from the @quantamagazine.bsky.social archives: always useful in #cryptography to know more about primes! www.quantamagazine.org/a-numerical-...
Reposted by Mathos
I’ve been thinking about this guy’s post a lot and I think it encapsulates a lot of what disturbs me about GenAI - people keep trying to use it to automate things that are actually important to us as humans (creative thought processes, social interaction) AND
Don't think there is a better illustration of AI-in-everything-whether-we-want-it-or-not than an AI bro buying an AI toy for his child who played with it for a bit and then seemed singularly unimpressed with the AI and turned it off.
He keeps turning it back on, and she keeps turning it off.
He keeps turning it back on, and she keeps turning it off.
December 31, 2024 at 12:05 PM
I’ve been thinking about this guy’s post a lot and I think it encapsulates a lot of what disturbs me about GenAI - people keep trying to use it to automate things that are actually important to us as humans (creative thought processes, social interaction) AND
Reposted by Mathos
those things also coincidentally tend to be things our society devalues.
Like playing with a 6yo. Listen, that shit is fucking exhausting. This age is peak Needs A Ton Of Stimulation. They want to riff and improv on imaginary narratives. It’s developmentally normal af. But they need a human.
Like playing with a 6yo. Listen, that shit is fucking exhausting. This age is peak Needs A Ton Of Stimulation. They want to riff and improv on imaginary narratives. It’s developmentally normal af. But they need a human.
December 31, 2024 at 12:05 PM
those things also coincidentally tend to be things our society devalues.
Like playing with a 6yo. Listen, that shit is fucking exhausting. This age is peak Needs A Ton Of Stimulation. They want to riff and improv on imaginary narratives. It’s developmentally normal af. But they need a human.
Like playing with a 6yo. Listen, that shit is fucking exhausting. This age is peak Needs A Ton Of Stimulation. They want to riff and improv on imaginary narratives. It’s developmentally normal af. But they need a human.
Reposted by Mathos
So it struck me that she enjoyed the “top hat and shoes” she made WITH HER DAD. It wasn’t about an interest in fashion, it was about her finding a way to play with the toy with her dad. Another human. The social interactions involved in that form of play.
December 31, 2024 at 12:05 PM
So it struck me that she enjoyed the “top hat and shoes” she made WITH HER DAD. It wasn’t about an interest in fashion, it was about her finding a way to play with the toy with her dad. Another human. The social interactions involved in that form of play.
Reposted by Mathos
(5/5)
And it is surprising that a logical step by step solution can be found (by a human, not by the computer) for this one.
Can you find it?
sudokupad.app/s2rj8n1va1
And it is surprising that a logical step by step solution can be found (by a human, not by the computer) for this one.
Can you find it?
sudokupad.app/s2rj8n1va1
Human vs Machine by Mathos (Sven's SudokuPad v0.572.0)
sudokupad.app
December 29, 2024 at 4:05 PM
(5/5)
And it is surprising that a logical step by step solution can be found (by a human, not by the computer) for this one.
Can you find it?
sudokupad.app/s2rj8n1va1
And it is surprising that a logical step by step solution can be found (by a human, not by the computer) for this one.
Can you find it?
sudokupad.app/s2rj8n1va1
Reposted by Mathos
(1/5)
Short thread on Anti-chess sudoku.
In anti-chess sudoku, as well as the normal rules of sudoku, the following constraints must be met:
• no digit can be a king's move or a knight's move away from another instance of that same digit;
• consecutive digits must not be orthogonally adjacent.
Short thread on Anti-chess sudoku.
In anti-chess sudoku, as well as the normal rules of sudoku, the following constraints must be met:
• no digit can be a king's move or a knight's move away from another instance of that same digit;
• consecutive digits must not be orthogonally adjacent.
December 29, 2024 at 4:05 PM
(1/5)
Short thread on Anti-chess sudoku.
In anti-chess sudoku, as well as the normal rules of sudoku, the following constraints must be met:
• no digit can be a king's move or a knight's move away from another instance of that same digit;
• consecutive digits must not be orthogonally adjacent.
Short thread on Anti-chess sudoku.
In anti-chess sudoku, as well as the normal rules of sudoku, the following constraints must be met:
• no digit can be a king's move or a knight's move away from another instance of that same digit;
• consecutive digits must not be orthogonally adjacent.
Reposted by Mathos
The information version of entropy is very important in cryptography! And the quantum version is becoming steadily more important too.... from @quantamagazine.bsky.social www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-entr...
What Is Entropy? A Measure of Just How Little We Really Know. | Quanta Magazine
Exactly 200 years ago, a French engineer introduced an idea that would quantify the universe’s inexorable slide into decay. But entropy, as it’s currently understood, is less a fact about the world th...
www.quantamagazine.org
December 29, 2024 at 7:28 PM
The information version of entropy is very important in cryptography! And the quantum version is becoming steadily more important too.... from @quantamagazine.bsky.social www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-entr...
Reposted by Mathos
Considering what would happen if a 100% interest rate was compounded an infinite number of times is what led to e's discovery. But of course it rears its beautiful head in far more than financial matters!
December 17, 2024 at 11:44 AM
Considering what would happen if a 100% interest rate was compounded an infinite number of times is what led to e's discovery. But of course it rears its beautiful head in far more than financial matters!
Reposted by Mathos
The current resurgence of my decades-long gyroid obsession was prompted by this post. Once I saw that laser-cut plywood did not have to be confined to flat surfaces, I thought that there might actually be a way to use it to make a gyroid using copies of a single piece. bsky.app/profile/unso...
This was posted by Lars Renklint in the Bridges #mathart FB group yesterday, and I am absolutely smitten
December 26, 2024 at 6:12 PM
The current resurgence of my decades-long gyroid obsession was prompted by this post. Once I saw that laser-cut plywood did not have to be confined to flat surfaces, I thought that there might actually be a way to use it to make a gyroid using copies of a single piece. bsky.app/profile/unso...
(1/5)
Short thread on Anti-chess sudoku.
In anti-chess sudoku, as well as the normal rules of sudoku, the following constraints must be met:
• no digit can be a king's move or a knight's move away from another instance of that same digit;
• consecutive digits must not be orthogonally adjacent.
Short thread on Anti-chess sudoku.
In anti-chess sudoku, as well as the normal rules of sudoku, the following constraints must be met:
• no digit can be a king's move or a knight's move away from another instance of that same digit;
• consecutive digits must not be orthogonally adjacent.
December 29, 2024 at 4:05 PM
(1/5)
Short thread on Anti-chess sudoku.
In anti-chess sudoku, as well as the normal rules of sudoku, the following constraints must be met:
• no digit can be a king's move or a knight's move away from another instance of that same digit;
• consecutive digits must not be orthogonally adjacent.
Short thread on Anti-chess sudoku.
In anti-chess sudoku, as well as the normal rules of sudoku, the following constraints must be met:
• no digit can be a king's move or a knight's move away from another instance of that same digit;
• consecutive digits must not be orthogonally adjacent.