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Topics /
Math & Algorithms
The most popular blog posts about math & algorithms on Hacker News. 130 posts.
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Introduction to Category Theory
The aim of this course is to teach the basics of category theory, in a way that is accessible and relevant to computer scientists. The emphasis is on gaining a good understanding the basic definitions, examples, and techniques, so that students are equipped for further study on their own of more advanced topics if…
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Rationality: From AI to Zombies
Between 2006 and 2009, senior MIRI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote several hundred essays for the blogs Overcoming Bias and Less Wrong, collectively called
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Inferring Algorithmic Patterns with Stack
At Meta, research permeates everything we do. We believe the most interesting research questions are derived from real world problems.
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Computational Geometry in Python
This post is a simplified version of the accompanying notebook to chapter 6 of my upcoming book Mastering SciPy. Click anywhere on this box for more information.
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John and Alicia Nash, 1928,1933-2015
Our condolences Awesome Stories source John Nash and his wife Alicia were killed in a taxi accident on the New Jersey Turnpike Saturday afternoon. They were on their way back from Norway where he a…
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If Scheme's numbers were like Scheme
Scheme's numbers are not like the rest of its library. They're older, and they're mostly borrowed from other languages (Maclisp and Common L...
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Top mathematical achievements of the last 5ish years, maybe
I have recently been going through my book Maths 1001 making updates for a forthcoming foreign edition (of which more in future). So I have been looking over mathematical developments since approxi…
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Break a dozen secret keys, get a million more for free
[An in-depth blog post by Daniel J. Bernstein, crossposted between the ECRYPT blog and the cr.yp.to blog .]
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The Discovery of Statistical Regression
We explore the hotly contested history of the crowning jewel of statistics.
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Bell inequality violation finally done right
A few weeks ago, Hensen et al., of the Delft University of Technology and Barcelona, Spain, put out a paper reporting the first experiment that violates the Bell inequality in a way that closes off…
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Categories for Programmers: The Yoneda Lemma
This is part 15 of Categories for Programmers. Previously: Representable Functors. See the Table of Contents. Most constructions in category theory are generalizations of results from other more sp…
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May Bayes Theorem Be with You
The frequentist paradigm enjoys the most widespread acceptance forstatistical analysis. Frequentist concepts such as confidence intervalsand p-values dominat...
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Hopefully the last post I'll ever write on Dual EC DRBG
I’ve been working on some other blog posts, including a conclusion of (or at least an installment in) this exciting series on zero knowledge proofs. That’s coming soon, but first I want…
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Lint for Math
Can we remove simple errors from math proofs? simple-talk interview source Stephen Johnson is one of the world’s top programmers. Top programmers are inherently lazy: they prefer to build too…
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Confirmed: The Last Great Prediction Of The Big Bang
A leftover glow unlike any other — of neutrinos — has finally been seen.
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Understanding Variance, Co-Variance, and Correlation
An explanation of Variance, Covariance and Correlation in rigorous yet clear terms providing a more general and intuitive look at these essential concepts.
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Small Introduction to Markov Chains
Introduction A Markov Chain is a set of transitions from one state to the next; Such that the transition from the current state to the next depends only on the current state, the previous and future states do not effect the probability of the transition. A transitions independence from future and past sates is called…
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When Greedy Algorithms Are Good Enough (2014)
Greedy algorithms are among the simplest and most intuitive algorithms known to humans. Their name essentially gives their description: do the thing that looks best right now, and repeat until nothing looks good anymore or you’re forced to stop. Some of the best situations in computer science are also when greedy…
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Physical Intuition, Not Mathematics (2011)
“What we call Man's power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.”
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The Simulated Annealing Algorithm
Simulated annealing is a method for finding a good (not necessarily perfect) solution to an optimization problem. If you're in a situation where you want to maximize or minimize something, your problem can likely be tackled with simulated annealing.
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Why telephone keypads are arranged the way they are
Why are the push buttons on a telephone arranged the way they are?
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Finding an Optimal Keyboard Layout for Swype
An overview of my work on optimizing phone keyboard layouts for Swype and T9. There's some interesting history here as well as a novel simulation-based approach to keyboard optimization.
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Brainfuck Optimization Strategies
In almost every computation a great variety of arrangements for the succession of the processes is possible, and various considerations must influence the selection amongst them for the purposes of a Calculating Engine. One essential object is to choose that arrangement which shall tend to reduce to a minimum the time…
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Bayes’ Theorem – What is it and what is it good for?
Bayes’ Theorem tells us how to rationally assess the probability of a certain statement of interest being true, given some evidence. Insofar as science consists in creating hypotheses, collecting e…
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Maze Generation in Thirteen Bytes (2012)
Update 12/7/2012 @ 13:46: Peter Ferrie smashed my record by a single byte, so the record is now held by him at 12 bytes. Congrats, and I feel like a fool for missing it :-) I’ve tacked on h…
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