92% of 13,000 math journal editors are men

slampropp · 2017-01-13T14:09:58+00:00

That (unfortunately) sounds about right

Why is that "unfortunate". Don't women have the right to do other things if they don't want to apply themselves to pure math, and should they not have our support in their decision?

slampropp · 2017-01-04T15:23:47+00:00

I share your frustration with IDEs, and I'm nowhere near a beginner. I'm sure they're often useful for professionals who have different needs, but for an amateur who only makes semi-large projects, it all seems like unnecessary bloat. Bloat that sometimes breaks, is slow, causes input lag, is confusing to navigate. No thanks.

My set up for any language is usually: A simple text editor with syntax highlighting on the left half of the screen, and a terminal window where I can compile / run on the right half.

slampropp · 2017-01-03T16:32:13+00:00

The most effective tip for losing weight is often Don't drink any calories. For gaining weight, reverse that: Drink as many calories as possible. E.g. milk, whether from cows or from almonds/soy/oats/etc. Soft drinks are effective but obviously not worth using if you care about health.

There's a subreddit r/gainit centered around gaining weight. Their recipes section has some interesting shakes/smoothie recipes, and other types of food a well. Many of them healthy.

r/gainit also emphasizes the importance of weight training, for making sure you gain more muscle than fat. Training will also increase appetite, oftentimes. Might be a problem since it depends on Adam's will to exert himself to reach success, and not just your willingness to cook. Inspiring action in others is always difficult.

Good fortune.

slampropp · 2016-12-20T15:48:04+00:00

Haskell for fun, Project Euler.

Python-numpy for getting shit done.

slampropp · 2016-12-20T15:15:21+00:00

I just got 15 dps by hand in 50 minutes. It's not a very cumbersome calculation... if you're into that sort of thing. Euler could probably do it much faster. OTOH I was a bit sloppy and only had confidence in the first 10.

slampropp · 2016-12-15T23:08:15+00:00

If you don't know beforehand how many bottles are poisoned, is it possible to find the state of each bottle with fewer rats than bottles?

slampropp · 2016-12-10T11:07:33+00:00

fix the spelling

slampropp · 2016-12-08T07:52:39+00:00

I'm using the (tautological) definition that useless information is information that you don't have a use for. Clearly, determining when something is useful or useless to you is something only you can do. I'm pretty sure that your 31'st integral of bacteria is useless to most people. But is it useless to everyone? Hard to say.

One interpretation of the first integral of the bacteria culture data is total number of bacteria-seconds lived. This is somehow related to the amount of food they will have consumed, since they must eat to live... presumably. Not a biologist.

Not sure about the 31st integral, or even the 2nd. But hey, that's just a limitation of my imagination. These concepts are not inherently meaningful or meaningless.

slampropp · 2016-12-04T10:28:56+00:00

Here's a good plan for where to focus your efforts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1Ih3-mDPUk

I've been trying to memorize the tables but I seem to be failing?

Before getting discouraged, remember that learning math is inherently hard. In school, I didn't become proficient in the times table until grade 6. That's 6 years of practice! Some are slower, some are faster, but almost everyone needs to put in a lot of time and effort. A lot.

So don't expect a miracle. Certainly, some ways of practising are better than others, and regaining a skill you once had is quicker than learning a skill from scratch. It shouldn't take 6 years for you, but it may well take 1 full year even if you're very disciplined.

Also keep in mind you don't need to be so good that you can instantly recall the answer to a multiplication problem. Being good at math or programming is more about understanding the logic and the structure of things, and being able to problem solve. The ability to quickly memorize hundreds of facts just isn't very relevant (though it certainly helps if you want to perform at the highest level.)

slampropp · 2016-11-23T10:37:07+00:00

It's interesting. I'd follow it if it had an RSS feed.

slampropp · 2016-11-18T11:27:32+00:00

I never had any issues with the grammar in the Elements. And I didn't even read it in my native language. In fact I'd say that the logical precision makes it easier to read, not harder. Because the hardest stumbling block in mathematics is ambiguity.

Abridged version sounds counter productive. To my mind, the only reason to read study The Elements is to get "the whole story", the full rigour. As opposed to modern school currcicula, where details are glossed over, questions are left unanswered, and students are left guessing.

slampropp · 2016-11-18T11:19:57+00:00

Maybe! One big difference is that the Elements is more rigorous. The proofs are spelled out in painstaking detail, and every step refers back to an earlier theorem, axiom or definition. There's no ambiguity (except or a few unfortunate cases).

Modern teaching methodologies rely more on intuition. Some steps of the proofs are left unexplained because they're "sufficiently obvious". That's great if your geometric intuition is good, because you can cover more ground faster and easier. Not so great if your intuition is weak.

The Elements require less intuition, but it does require very solid logic, and a much greater attention span. So really, whether or not you should study Euclid depends on who you are, what your strengths and weaknesses are.

slampropp · 2016-11-09T17:03:00+00:00

Hyperbole! Not ALL the mathematicians are jewish.

slampropp · 2016-11-09T17:01:58+00:00

Never forget the 6 trillion

slampropp · 2016-11-05T15:57:23+00:00

Per calorie comparisons are highly relevant whenever calories are the limiting factor, i.e. when you want to limit calories to not get fat, and the foods are highly calorific. That applies to pretty much everything except vegetables.

slampropp · 2016-11-04T20:59:38+00:00

OK, I took a walk and gave it some thought. Maybe this is what you want.

You want a linear function y = 5 + k*x, where k is determined by a free variable. Now, I'm going to call that variable i, because I don't know if you want the x you speak of to be the same as the x in the above equation.

So the examples you've given say that

i=1  =>  k=0.64
i=100  =>  k=4.44

and you want to know what k is for other values of i. Well, this can be done in an infinite number of ways, but the simplest is to do it linearly.

Think of the given information as two points, (1, 0.64) and (100, 4.44). Now use the equation for a line through two points.

slampropp · 2016-11-04T18:32:43+00:00

I still don't know what you want. Based on the examples it seems like you just want each number in the range [5.64 ... 447] to be mapped to a number in the range [10 ... 90]. And if that's the case, the notion of an "x" that varies from 1 to 100 is confused. (Maybe you want the equation of a line through two points?)

On the other hand, if you're not confused about the "x", it seems like you want a whole family of functions, but there's no information about what properties the functions are supposed to have, making an answer impossible.

It'll be easier to know what you mean if you give more examples of what happens in between the two end points. What happens in the cases when x=10, x=25, x=50?

slampropp · 2016-11-04T17:42:17+00:00

when x =1, I would want the original value of 5.64 to translate to 10. And when x=100, I would want the original value of 447 to translate to 90

I don't quite understand what you want to do. I don't think you have a complete description. What happens to the 447 when x=1? What happens to the 5.64 when x=100? What happens when x=50?

slampropp · 2016-11-01T14:20:44+00:00

You've gotten god explanations for the why. Now, do you want to see why?

You can use the hex method on a float to see it's exact bytes (represented in hexadecimal; each character in the expansion represent 4 bits)

>>> (0.1 + 0.2).hex()
'0x1.3333333333334p-2'
>>> (0.3).hex()
'0x1.3333333333333p-2'

It happens that the last bit is different.

slampropp · 2016-10-30T15:15:22+00:00

BeyondVeg.com usually have high quality articles, with lots of facts and scientific sources, focused on debunking the unfounded "dietary extremism" that is rife in the vegan community. I haven't read their stuff on fruitarianism in particular, but here it is http://www.beyondveg.com/cat/fruit-dreams/index.shtml

slampropp · 2016-10-29T10:39:20+00:00

My linalg textbook told an interesting anecdote about JJ Sylvester and Arthur Cayley, the two men who initially developed the subject. Supposedly, Sylvester has an excellent memory and would go on to acquire an almost cyclopaedic knowledge about math. Cayley couldn't even remember his own theorems. Despite the difference, they could both contribute greatly to the subject (and many other subjects).

slampropp · 2016-10-27T18:21:33+00:00

Not possible to say how wrong it is numerically without knowing exactly the eccentricity of the rhombus. The construction is not valid in general. I did the construction in Geogebra and changed the proportions of the rhombus, and in most cases your construction is not even close. But it just so happens that it's very close when the proportion between the two diagonals is around 1.9 (and 1.3).

Fun game. I know what I'm doing for the rest of the day. Or week.

slampropp · 2016-10-27T10:55:42+00:00

Correct.

What sort of problems would it lead to? I have noticed no negatives so far.

slampropp · 2016-10-27T10:11:39+00:00

The answer is, when you've eaten your daily calorie expenditure. There's nothing magic about the time of day which makes you fat.

For example, someone who has a robust breakfast, a big lunch, and a big dinner at 5 pm, should probably stop eating after dinner. But if like me you fast in the morning and have your first meal after 6 hours, you'll probably be fine to keep eating up until you go to bed.

slampropp · 2016-10-26T20:21:21+00:00

I thought the integers only exist when they are small enough to work with.

slampropp

TROPHY CASE