@sprout@mathstodon.xyz
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sprout

@sprout@mathstodon.xyz

Likes to shuffle bits. Developer of the Egel language, see https://egel-lang.github.io/

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

johncarlosbaez, (edited ) to random
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Fun article by John Psmith featuring some ferociously competitive mathematicians and physicists. A quote:

.....

In the 1696 edition of Acta Eruditorum, Johann Bernoulli threw down the gauntlet:

"I, Johann Bernoulli, address the most brilliant mathematicians in the world. Nothing is more attractive to intelligent people than an honest, challenging problem, whose possible solution will bestow fame and remain as a lasting monument. Following the example set by Pascal, Fermat, etc., I hope to gain the gratitude of the whole scientific community by placing before the finest mathematicians of our time a problem which will test their methods and the strength of their intellect. If someone communicates to me the solution of the proposed problem, I shall publicly declare him worthy of praise.

Given two points A and B in a vertical plane,
what is the curve traced out by a point acted on only by gravity,
which starts at A and reaches B in the shortest time."

This became known as the brachistochrone problem, and it occupied the best minds of Europe for, well, for less time than Johann Bernoulli hoped. The legend goes that he issued that pompous challenge I quoted above, and shortly afterward discovered that his own solution to the problem was incorrect. Worse, in short order he received five copies of the actually correct solution to the problem, supposedly all on the same day. The responses came from Newton, Leibniz, l’Hôpital, Tschirnhaus, and worst of all, his own brother Jakob Bernoulli, who had upstaged him yet again.

(1/2) (The fun part about Newton comes in part 2.)

https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/review-the-variational-principles

sprout,
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@johncarlosbaez /me mumbles something about 'that's not how you measure IQ'

jonmsterling, to random
@jonmsterling@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Ultimately we have to ask ourselves if it was overall a good thing that computer science as a discipline ceased to be part of mathematics — rather than broadening the horizons of mathematics and bridging the gap between mathematics and social science. I am not speaking purely rhetorically, as there are legitimate arguments to be made on both sides.

sprout,
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@boarders @antoinechambertloir @jonmsterling My view is that you shouldn't hire too many mathematicians in a CS department since everything grinds to a halt and nothing real is done anymore.

sprout,
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@boarders @antoinechambertloir @jonmsterling In contrast I think too many mathematicians are hired since they're relatively cheap, they require only paper and pencil, and people expect grandiose results from fundamental research.

I'ld rather invest in people with the aptitude to actually create stuff. Sometimes that's a mathematician but it's rare.

sprout, to random
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Co-/contravariance presents an inherent ontological challenge. Whenever your problem domain involves collections of things organized by an is-a relationship, this problem emerges. Whether it's a bouquet of flowers or a bowl of fish, the issue persists.

sprout,
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I chatgpt-ed (3.5) this. But it seems off, like prose just doesn't cut it in comparison to facts stated in an informal tone.

sprout,
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@johncarlosbaez I described co-/contravariance to ChatGPT as an ontological problem and it changed it into a challenge. Which I agree, it isn't.

johncarlosbaez, (edited ) to random
@johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz avatar

I cannot tell you about anything interesting today, because I'm rushing to finish a grant proposal that might help other people get paid to do something interesting. I was largely successful in doing research without grants for my entire career - yet now, retired, I am trying to help out some younger colleagues by applying for a big grant. I'm beginning to think it was a mistake.

Soon I will see if I can upload an .xslx file without buying Excel. Wish me luck.

sprout,
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@johncarlosbaez What was the mistake here? If you don't mind me asking.

sprout,
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@johncarlosbaez Ah well. We live and learn. Good luck!

sprout, to random
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Thinking a bit further on Bell with the suspicion I got nerd-sniped into this.

There's a trivial experiment that would make me accept that QM is non-local any experimental physicist can do.

I want to know whether when I change the orientation of one detector in a straightforward entangled state experiment, that changes the probability distribution at the other detector.

If so, we have faster-than-light communication; if not, each particle is just governed by a separate probability distribution.

sprout,
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@johncarlosbaez Thanks a lot for answering this. What I now want to do is show that I can mimmick a QM experiment assuming that with certain a certain probability entangled pairs are produced where each particle is governed by its own probability distribution.

But I have many hobbies and a peanut brain.

Thanks again.

johncarlosbaez, (edited ) to random
@johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz avatar

A grasshopper lands at a random point on a planar lawn of area one. It then jumps once, a fixed distance 𝑑, in a random direction. What shape should the lawn be to maximize the chance that the grasshopper lands on the lawn again?

Surprisingly, the lawn should never be shaped like a disk! Here's what it should look like for various choices of 𝑑. For larger values of 𝑑 it gets even weirder.

• Olga Goulko and Adrian Kent, The grasshopper problem, https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.07621.

Follow @esoterica to learn more surprising results in mathematics!

sprout,
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@johncarlosbaez @esoterica The original post was about Bell's inequalities. Someone with more math genes than me should comment on my comment once, or just steal the idea outright. Do you care to comment Mr. Baez?

"I suspect that the only thing Bell's inequalities say is that you cannot fix an indeterminate value. Like when a coin is spinning during a toss, you cannot fix the outcome to either heads or tails, only measure after it lands."

sprout,
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@johncarlosbaez @esoterica Oh right, thanks for looking at it.

I suggest that a correlation between indefinite states, measurements described by sampling probability distributions, is different from a correlation between definite states, or plain measurements on a shared state described by a hidden variable.

But let's leave it. Thanks for you attention.

sprout,
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@johncarlosbaez @esoterica One last remark since this didn't let me go the last days and I think my last comment made it worse.

I think what Bell did is that he tried to give a QM system (of particles) a definite value by chosing a hidden variable. And it shouldn't surprise anyone, especially those working with QM, that that doesn't work out.

That's just a hunch but it leaves a nagging suspicion that QM is local.

sprout,
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@johncarlosbaez I agree with Bell, I challenge an assumption. I think he oversimplified.

But okay, extraordinary claims and all that.

bert_hubert, to random Dutch
@bert_hubert@mastodon.nl avatar

Nav de CSAM wetgeving & verwarring, een paar "toots" over artikel 13 van de grondwet. Je moet wetsteksten heel nauwkeurig lezen, ze zijn vaak namelijk echt met reden precies zo geschreven. Als eerste tip, check wat er nou echt staat. Dat kan voor Nederlandse wetten op wetten.overheid.nl: https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0001840/2023-02-22

sprout,
@sprout@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@bert_hubert Waarom niet gewoon CSAM op elke MS Windows computer? Veel effectiever.

sprout,
@sprout@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@bert_hubert Wat maakt in jouw ogen Whatsapp zo speciaal dan?

sprout,
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@bert_hubert Nee, ik bedoelde natuurlijk de surveillance software. En ik maakte een analogie om maar weer eens aan te tonen dat het heel raar is om met dit argument deze bijzonder specifieke applicatie te targetten.

johncarlosbaez, (edited ) to random
@johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Someone wrote me saying:

"Next week, I'm going to be giving a talk on scientific reasoning to a group of judges and attorneys for the ⬛ ⬛ ⬛ ⬛ Bar Association. More frequently than ever, judges are being asked to take judicial notice (a process where evidence is admitted to a trial and accepted as fact beyond dispute, without a hearing - I'm well aware of how frightening this must sound to an actual physicist!) of scientific principles. Most of these judges do not come from a scientific or mathematical background, but they are nevertheless trying to learn to competently weigh what is presented before them. If you have a moment, would you be willing to share any thoughts on what judges should look out for when attempting to sift through scientific reasoning?"

Suggestions, anyone? Is there a good book about this for lawyers or judges? That might be better than trying to convey wisdom in a few words.

sprout,
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@johncarlosbaez I prefer Feyerabend then, prepare people for that there isn't a whole lot we know for sure, but at the same time convince people that it's hard to beat scientific consensus.

BartoszMilewski, to random
@BartoszMilewski@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Physics is tied to mathematics, so we have to assume that, by Goedel, that it must be undecidable. We should be able to come up with an experiment whose outcome cannot be derived, but which Nature "knows" how to answer.

sprout,
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@BartoszMilewski Let's do that after you explained what you mean with 'tied' in the first sentence.

sprout,
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@BartoszMilewski Gibberish can't be proven wrong. Let's go Wittgensteinian on this.

sprout,
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@johncarlosbaez @tiago @BartoszMilewski The original question is so problematic that I consider it gibberish. Mostly because we are perfectly clueless about the relations between nature, physics, and math.

christianp, to random
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

I'm so glad I did all the server maintenance the day before this latest phase of twitter's self-destruction

sprout,
@sprout@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@christianp I don't seem to have a home/landing page?

sprout,
@sprout@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@ColinTheMathmo @christianp My homepage wasn't loading for me for an hour. But the problem seems to have resolved itself. So nevermind and thanks all!

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