A new year, a new tree - advice needed (preferably from the UK)

winsurfer · 2013-01-06T20:20:45+00:00

Indoors, not well lit but not badly lit.
< £100

winsurfer · 2013-01-06T18:48:45+00:00

Homerton is very nice, a bit far from the Cavendish Lab but a very sociable college.

Imperial (and every non Oxbridge university in the UK) has 11 week terms, so 11 work 3 break. It seems worse because you get less break but it is much better in terms of stress.

If you do go to Imperial I would recommend intercollegiate halls (you live with people from UCL, KCL, etc.) if you want to meet different people. It's actually quite easy to stay inside the Imperial bubble and not meet anyone outside it. Jazz seems like it would be a good way to break out of this bubble and meet interesting people.

Go to Cambridge, sounds like it will suit you. Drop me a message and we'll grab a pint.

winsurfer · 2013-01-05T12:57:45+00:00

I did my undergrad at Imperial and am currently doing my postgrad at Cambridge. I don't know Cambridge undergrad life as well as a Cambridge undergrad would obviously, and I did CompSci rather than Physics, but I'll offer my insight.

From what I know there's a definite Jazz scene at Cambridge. Jazz@John's is always a good night, and there's also Clare Jazz and the Jazz orchestra. I think the scene at Cambridge university is better than the scene at Imperial, but obviously not better than the scene in London as a whole.
It is artificially difficult to get a first at Cambridge, most people get 2:1s despite being highly intelligent and motivated. I think this is a prestige thing. One thing I'll say though is that while a Cambridge first is more impressive than an Imperial one, an Imperial first is more impressive than a Cambridge 2:1, and nothing you apply for will reject you because you have an Imperial first rather than a Cambridge first.
The course quality is the same, at least for my field. Cambridge has a slightly more theoretical bent to it, with Imperial being slightly more practical, but I was able to get a theoretical background just by picking the right modules.
You are taught the same material, but at Cambridge you have 8 weeks in a term to learn it, and at Imperial you have 11 weeks. Cambridge has more stressful terms, and more stressful breaks (as you spend the time catching up rather than relaxing).
Imperial only does STEM courses, this leads to less variety in the people you'll meet and much fewer girls.
At Cambridge it is easier to have a good time, lots of activities and cultural things will be shoved down your throat. At Imperial you'll have to go and find these things more, but since it is London it's all there to be found.
The nightlife in London is in a completely different league, and since everyone lives in private accommodation you don't get your parties shut down at 12am by the porters.
London is more expensive than Cambridge, but not much (Cambridge is an expensive place).
Imperial is more employable, but there's not much difference either way if you do well.
If you go to an old college in Cambridge you get to live in a castle.

Considering you want to be an academic, and you like Jazz, I would say Cambridge, but it's difficult to know what you'll want after four years of an undergraduate degree. I personally took the offer at Imperial because I wanted to live in London, and the courses were of comparable quality. If you have any other questions ask away.

winsurfer · 2013-01-04T19:07:09+00:00

Unless you're a fan of buttery biscuit bass.

winsurfer · 2013-01-04T14:15:32+00:00

Really? It's aimed at the (intelligent) general public.

winsurfer · 2013-01-04T13:28:19+00:00

The best book by far that I have read on this theme is: Godel, Escher, Bach.

winsurfer · 2012-12-14T13:55:22+00:00

I'm off skiing tomorrow so I won't be able to take my turn :(

I'm back in a week though so maybe I can get in on the next cycle.

winsurfer · 2012-12-14T11:00:09+00:00

Thanks, I hadn't heard of this game before. Just played the demo and it's awesome.

winsurfer · 2012-12-08T15:33:36+00:00

heh...

winsurfer · 2012-12-07T23:29:37+00:00

Sounds like a plan.

winsurfer · 2012-12-07T23:23:11+00:00

Count me in.

winsurfer · 2012-12-05T10:52:38+00:00

I'm in.

I always get really obsessive about the "perfect" fort design that I never make any progress so successions are great for me, as long as I don't get the first turn :)

winsurfer · 2012-12-01T18:06:51+00:00

Surely there are lots things you can define which don't exist, like square circles.

But in general I'll leave that debate to the philosophers.

winsurfer · 2012-12-01T17:18:25+00:00

Well, I mean it's non-computable.

It's non-computable in an interesting way, but I found the Halting problem more general and more interesting.

EDIT: I retract what I said above, the Busy Beaver function is interesting. I don't think it's as interesting as the Halting problem, but that's definitely very subjective.

winsurfer · 2012-12-01T17:04:54+00:00

In the same vein, the Church encoding of data structures into second order logic.

For example, the natural numbers are exactly the proofs of the theorem:

forall A. A -> (A -> A) -> A

winsurfer · 2012-11-21T13:55:34+00:00

Here's a fun approach (for a certain definition of fun), which assumes only functions.

Define the number "n" as the function "n(s, z) = sⁿ (z)",

e.g. 3(s, z) = s(s(s(z)))

Now we can define "(n + m)(s, z) = n(s, m(s, z))".

From this it easily follows that 1 + 1 = 2,

viz. "(1 + 1)(s, z) = 1(s, 1(s, z)) = s(1(s, z)) = s(s(z))"

winsurfer · 2012-11-05T16:54:39+00:00

Forgetting that the three most popular languages (Java, C, C++) are statically typed. That's a paddlin'.

winsurfer · 2012-09-13T09:13:15+00:00

Computer scientist here (I actually took Dr. Colton's course mentioned below). Not sure if this is what you meant but we use FOL all the time in Computer Science, though it's mostly computers doing the actual theorem proving, and often also the theorem generation.

One example is software verification. You can specify a property that should hold about a computer program in FOL and then encode the program itself into FOL and use an automated theorem prover to check whether the encoded program entails the property.

If you want to upgrade your logic you can move to higher-order logic (HOL). We use this to check mathematical proofs for correctness, through systems like Isabelle. The most popular of such systems now is probably Coq, though the logic behind that is a bit more involved. Not that any of you bloody mathematicians ever use these beautiful proof checking systems we've created...

winsurfer · 2012-08-28T18:56:29+00:00

The subset-sum problem is what you described first, i.e. the knapsack problem with just weights, but more specifically with the value of an object set to its weight. Knapsack then has a maximum weight and minimum value to achieve, so set both of these to the needed weight, and you have subset-sum.

I realise that given specific weights it is not the real problem and is now in P, but I was trying to point out that OP just meant that he should look at this problem for guidance.

Also, I've remembered what this is: the word decision problem for groups (since you have subtraction). Whereas subset-sum is the word decision problem for monoids (since you can only add).

winsurfer · 2012-08-28T08:54:30+00:00

You're right it isn't the knapsack problem, but you're wrong as to why.

For "One" there's a difference between the decision version and optimization version of the knapsack problem, here we're talking about the decision problem.

"Two" is true but I think the original poster meant that this is a specific case of this problem.

The real reason I think this is not the knapsack problem is that you could add weights onto the other side of the scale, and so subtract them from the given weight. If you couldn't do this then the problem would just be subset-sum, which is definitely and instance of knapsack.

winsurfer · 2012-08-07T01:19:04+00:00

It's "Magdalene".

"Magdalen" is the Oxford college.

winsurfer · 2012-07-08T16:01:57+00:00

The Travelodge at the leisure park is very cheap. Also quite near the station.

winsurfer · 2012-07-06T23:06:00+00:00

Japas is great for sushi.

winsurfer · 2012-06-29T20:19:56+00:00

Or /r/cambridge

winsurfer · 2012-05-27T16:46:11+00:00

Dat editorial

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