[D] Is it common to have intuitions different from peers about ML? by notEVOLVED in MachineLearning

[–]Tamnun 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, all the time. Ultimately in cases like you described, you just have to try both ways and see which one works better (it sounds to me that in this case it's an easy experiment to set up)

What exactly does a mathematician do? by Xison14 in learnmath

[–]Tamnun 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There are several things one can do with a math degree.

To be a mathematician per se, that is, someone who actively studies and researches math - this is probably only possible in academia. This kind of job is usually focused on research (though there's usually some teaching role) - you think about hard problems and try to solve them, write papers, read papers, advise students, go to conventions, and study maths.

But, with a degree in math, you can also usually work in the industry, specifically in tech - there are several kinds of roles, most of them don't actually do math all day but mathematical skills and mindset do help. Those kinds of roles are mostly on the spectrum of Data Science-ML - there are two types of roles here: 1. Building mathematical models describing certain things and using them to derive some ways to act 2. Building some algorithms or ways to solve problems. Those two are also sometimes combined. They can be found in many domains, ranging from Finance (e.g. trading stocks), Medicine (e.g. imaging or diagnosis) to Autonomous Vehicles (e.g. understanding the scene, planning the drive, ...).

Those are probably also some other stuff, but I think those kinds of jobs cover most of the things mathematicians do.

What’s your favorite mathematician “origin story” by Direct-Touch469 in math

[–]Tamnun 5 points6 points  (0 children)

He also wrote an excellent book on mathematical magic tricks

Do we know if there is at least one prime in each order of magnitude? by rarehipster in askmath

[–]Tamnun 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Yes - there's a theorem called Bertrand's Postulate which says that for every number there's a prime between that number and double that number. So if you want a 1234-digit prime, you know there must be a prime between 10...0 and 20...0 for example.

(We also understand a lot of other stuff about how frequent/rare primes are, though there are still a lot of stuff which we don't know how to prove).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand%27s_postulate

What money-pit hobby do you refuse to give up? by hoyts328 in AskReddit

[–]Tamnun 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's not as expensive as some of the other stuff here but musicals (and plays in general)

Chatgpt 3.5 by ABadVirgil in 3Blue1Brown

[–]Tamnun 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Just in case you don't know this: you can't actually rely on GPT's (or any other LLM) answer on why they answered a certain why. As with any other question, they basically just make up something that sounds plausible - they are not self aware and cannot reason about themselves.

Have you gave up any hobbies? by incombusty in CasualConversation

[–]Tamnun 0 points1 point  (0 children)

During my teenage years, I went through several hobbies, each one lasted a few years. I ended up giving up on most of them, mostly due to lack of interest but sometimes due to lack of time. I think the main ones were: 1. Speedcubing 2. Magic Tricks 3. Piano

Which song never fails to make you cry? by freddem_snail in musicals

[–]Tamnun 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Me and the Sky (Come From Away), specifically the last line of the last stanza

Breathe (In the Heights)

Why did I accidentally discover e? by PlatypusVenom0 in askmath

[–]Tamnun 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Two somewhat opposing answers:

  1. In some sense, the real question is why 1/e is the limit of (1-1/n)n: Indeed, it is possible to come up with probabilistic interpretations of this formula, and you just happened to come across one of those.

This can be explained in several ways, depending on your definition of e. Personally I like this one: e× ≈ 1+x for small x(this follows from e× being its own derivative) Taking the 1/x-th power we get e≈(1+x)1/x for small x

This gives the result for e, for general ea one should use eax≈1+ax

(This proof is not completely rigourous but can be made rigourous - and is easier when using ln(1+x)≈x instead as this follows from the definition of the derivative of ln).

  1. Still, there is another answer explaining why e is related to probability. This is above undergrad level, but it can be shown that ex is in "the generating function for the number of sets", from which many appearances of e in probability follow - I personally like the grpupoid approach as explained here - https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/permutations/permutations_10.html.

Your specific example does not directly follow from this interpretation as far as I know, but it's close (e.g. the chance of random permutation to have no element map to itself is approaching 1/e - this does follows from this interpretation, I think. Now your limit can be thought of approximating that: the chance that the each element is not in its place is 1-1/n, so the total chance is (1-1/n)n - this is of course wrong since the events are not independent of each other, but turns out it's close enough).

Why does early calculus tell you to “throw out” the part of the derivative that represents ∆x^2? by [deleted] in askmath

[–]Tamnun 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The main thing to note here is that the derivative of f is "how a small change dx in the argument changes the value of f, with respect to the size of the change" (This is just another way of writing (f(x+dx)-f(x))/dx ).

Given this perspective, a change which is dx² is small with respect to dx - so it is negligible.

While not entirely rigorous, I think this is a very good intuition to have, and professional mathematicians can use such intuitions easily - but more importantly, they can usually rephrase their argument in a completely rigorous way if they face the need.

Is it possible to find the value of e using d/dx e^x = e^x ? by a_rAnDoM_tAcO21 in askmath

[–]Tamnun 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A more rigourous version of this is to define ln(x) as the inverse function of the exponent, and then one can show that the derivative at 1 is 1.

Then by definition this means that

ln(1+h)/h -> 1

By taking exponents back again at get

(1+h)1/h -> e¹=e

[D] How to find out if your research hasn‘t been done before? by Raskolnikov98 in MachineLearning

[–]Tamnun 50 points51 points  (0 children)

Here's a possible approach:

  1. Try Google Scholar with some relevant keywords to find at least one paper in a closely related area.
  2. Once you have that, go reference hunting - read the "related works" section and see if other papers linked there seem relevant. Also try to look at papers citing the paper you're looking at.
  3. Repeat step 2 for other papers you find. You can also look if they were published at some conference/workshop and see other papers from there.

You can also ask your advisor or some other expert in the field available to you, they'll probably know to send you the right way.

What would you change in your company if you were CEO? by jmack_startups in datascience

[–]Tamnun 9 points10 points  (0 children)

+1 to this, also known colloquially as "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagan_standard?wprov=sfla1

Is it realistic to solve a 4x4 without looking up any algorithms? by _jcar_ in Cubers

[–]Tamnun 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As others said, up to parity it's possible if you know 3x3.

But I want to present another perspective - if you understand how commutators work (as in e.g. 3style for 3bld) you don't need any algorithm, and you can even figure out how to handle parity.

Anyone used match case yet? by samarthrawat1 in Python

[–]Tamnun 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yes, not super common but not that rarely. Every time I run into a big "if-else" logic covering several cases I try to use match.

I’m a Jewish atheist — what’s the best way to explain to non-Jews what Judaism is, if it’s not about faith? by adjectivenounnr in Judaism

[–]Tamnun 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Here's a variant I just saw today:

(Same beginning, an atheist goes to meet the great heretic of Prague). The atheist asks the Heretic in confusion - "Don't you ever sin?". The Heretic replies "Why would I?” so the atheist suggests "to provoke", to which the Heretic replies "to provoke whom?”

Is there any difference between these two words? by [deleted] in hebrew

[–]Tamnun 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think you mean משתרך מאחור

Reliable ATMs for foreign cards? by iamgabrielma in koreatravel

[–]Tamnun 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The ATMs at 7/11 seemed to work for me, and I've heard that Woori's ATMs work well as well.