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Why does 0.1 and 0.2 = 0.30000000000000004?
Why does 0.1 + 0.2 = 0.30000000000000004?
Topics /
Math & Algorithms
The most popular blog posts about math & algorithms on Hacker News. 2,851 posts.
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π in Other Universes
How the value of π depends on the definition of distance.
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Basic Intro to Elliptic Curve Cryptography (2019)
Learn cryptography in Go by building ciphers, hashes, password security, and encryption tools. Understand security beneath the library call.
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Fastest branchless binary search
Fastest general and simple binary search C++ implementation
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State machines are wonderful tools
I love when my current problem can be solved with a state machine. They’re fun to design and implement, and I have high confidence about correctness. They tend to:
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Benoit Mandelbrot, RIP
Nothing in the news media yet, but many folks on Twitter and colleague Nassim Taleb are reporting that the father of fractal geometry is dead at age 85. We’re n
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Introduction to A* (1997)
Movement for a single object seems easy. Pathfinding is complex. Why bother with pathfinding? Consider the following situation:
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A digestion of the Jacobian conjecture counterexample
The notorious Jacobian conjecture can be formulated concretely over the complex numbers as follows. Conjecture 1 (Jacobian Conjecture) Let $latex {F:{\bf C}^n \rightarrow {\bf C}^n}&fg=000000$ …
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How random can you be?
Compare top same day payout casinos in Canada with verified withdrawal speeds, bonus offers, and player ratings for 2026.
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Calculus Is Deeply Irrational
You’re lying on a beautiful beach when you feel a tap on your shoulder, and suddenly you’re not at the beach at all — you’re in a classroom. The student who woke you looks apologe…
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Divisibility by 7 is a Walk on a Graph (2009)
Mathematics, applications of mathematics to life in general, and my life as a mathematician.
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An Overview of Cryptography
Free, evolving crypto tutorial since 1999!
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Learning from Scratch by Thinking Fast and Slow
Reinforcement Learning
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Forecasts need to have error bars
Richard Rosenfeld in the most recent Criminologist published a piece about forecasting national level crime rates. People complain about the FBI releasing crime stats a year late, academics are wor…
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Seven sins of numerical linear algebra
In numerical linear algebra we are concerned with solving linear algebra problems accurately and efficiently and understanding the sensitivity of the problems to perturbations. We describe seven si…
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The Color of Infinite Temperature
This is the color of something infinitely hot. Of course you’d instantly be fried by gamma rays of arbitrarily high frequency, but this would be its spectrum in the visible range. This…
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Modes, Medians and Means: A Unifying Perspective
Introduction / Warning Link to heading Any traditional introductory statistics course will teach students the definitions of modes, medians and means. But, because introductory courses can’t assume that students have much mathematical maturity, the close relationship between these three summary statistics can’t be…
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Conway's Game of Life, in real life
When life gives you switches...
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Folks, we have the best π
And some novel ideas for bicycle wheel design.
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Common statistical tests are linear models
By Jonas Kristoffer Lindeløv ( blog , profile ). Last updated: 28 June, 2019 (See changelog ). Check out the Python version and the Twitter summary .
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B-trees in Factorio
learning about B-Trees...in factorio
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Alonzo Church: Architect of computer intelligence
The man who gave us the solution to the Entscheidungsproblem
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Visualizing Garbage Collection Algorithms
Developers take garbage collection for granted, but it's hard to see how it works. Watch 5 different GC algorithm visualizations.
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The Algorithms Behind Probabilistic Programming
We recently introduced our report on probabilistic programming. The accompanying prototype allows you to explore the past and future of the New York residential real estate market. This post gives a feel for the content in our report by introducing the algorithms and technology that make probabilistic programming…