1411
Bézier Curves and the logic behind them
The logic behind Bézier Curves used in CSS animations and visual elements.
Topics /
Math & Algorithms
The most popular blog posts about math & algorithms on Hacker News. 2,851 posts.
1412
The Fallacy of Cracking Contests (1998)
In this issue: The Fallacy of Cracking Contests How to Recognize Plaintext News The Doghouse: Iomega Zip Disks Counterpane Systems News Final Report from the Commerce Department Technical Advisory Committee on Key Recovery Comments From Readers About "CRYPTO-GRAM"
1413
How long is that Bézier?
Blog of Raph Levien.
1414
Nearly all binary searches and mergesorts are broken (2006)
Posted by Joshua Bloch, Software EngineerI remember vividly Jon Bentley's first Algorithms lecture at CMU, where he asked all of us incoming Ph.D. ...
1415
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An automatic theorem proving project
I am very happy to say that I have recently received a generous grant from the Astera Institute to set up a small group to work on automatic theorem proving, in the first instance for about three y…
1417
Reversible computing with mechanical links and pivots
With the concern that “Moore’s Law is dead,” new interest has grown for unconventional forms of computing. This includes:
1418
Mathematician-M.D. claims to have solved the 110-year-old Lindelöf hypothesis
A completely new approach suggests the validity of the 110-year-old Lindelöf hypothesis, opening up the possibilities of new discoveries in quantum computing, number theory and cybersecurity
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Experimenting with Post-Quantum Cryptography
Posted by Matt Braithwaite, Software Engineer Quantum computers are a fundamentally different sort of computer that take advantage of aspec...
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Lindenmayer systems
A Lindemayer system or LSystem for short consists of an alphabet of symbols that can be used to make strings, a collection of production that expand each symbol into some larger string of symbols, an initial “axiom” string from which to begin construction, and a mechanism for translating the generated strings into…
1423
Pseudo-bandlimited pixel art filtering in 3D: A mathematical derivation
Recently, I’ve been playing Octopath Traveler, and I’m very disappointed with the poor texture filtering seen in this game. It is PS1-level, with severe shimmering artifacts, which ruins the nice pixel art. Tastefully merging retro pixel art with 3D environment is a very cool aesthetic to me, so I want it to look…
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What should we tell our students?
[This is a guest post by Álvaro Lozano-Robledo. This blog post was initially written in a different file format and converted using AI. — T.] TL;DR: Keep calm and carry on studying math. I wo…
1426
The Greedy Doctor Problem
TL;DR: How to reason about people who are smarter than you. A few proposals, interspersed with reinforcement learning and humorous fiction. Ending on a surprising connection to logical inductors.
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Binary Decision Diagrams (2010)
Suppose you want to visit every state capitol exactly once, traveling on highways. Which route is shortest? Which route is longest? What is the mean and standard deviation of all the routes?
1429
The Advisory Group on Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence
[This is a guest post by the Advisory Group on Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence. This blog post was initially written in a different file format and converted using AI. — T.] We would …
1430
Dividing unsigned 8-bit numbers
Division is quite an expensive operation. For instance, latency of the 32-bit division varies between 10 and 15 cycles on the Cannon Lake CPU, and for Zen4 this range is from 9 to 14 cycles. The latency of 32-bit multiplication is 3 or 4 cycles on both CPU models.
1431
Learning math? Think like a cartoonist
What's the essential skill of a cartoonist? Drawing ability? Humor? A deep well of childhood trauma? I'd say it's an eye for simplification, capturing the…
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Everything Is Correlated
Anthology of sociology, statistical, or psychological papers discussing the observation that all real-world variables have non-zero correlations and the implications for statistical theory such as ‘null hypothesis testing’.
1434
Bayesian ranking of items with up and downvotes or 5 star ratings
Evan Miller wrote a great article How Not To Sort By Average Rating . He shows that simple formulas like score = upvotes - downvotes or score = upvotes / (upvotes + downvotes) don’t work. He proposes to use the lower bound of the Wilson score confidence interval. The formula is complicated and somewhat of a hack…
1435
A reasonably speedy Python ray tracer
Cyrille Rossant's small ray-tracer is an nice self-contained Python program (using NumPy) that renders this 400×300 image in about 15 seconds on a fast PC:
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History of Maths for Beginners
In the comments on my recent post on books on the history of maths Fernando Q. Gouvêa jumped in to draw attention to the book Math Through the Ages: A Gentle History for Teachers and Othe…
1438
Elo sucks – better multiplayer rating systems for smaller games (2019)
Elo does not work when different skill levels must play against each other. Can we make a better system?
1439
Is Matrix Multiplication Ugly?
A few weeks ago I was minding my own business, peacefully reading a well-written and informative article about artificial intelligence, when I was ambushed by a passage in the article that aroused …
1440
What if you had bought Apple stock instead of that iPod?
Currently, Apple's stock is at an all time high. A share today is worth over 40 times its value seven years ago. So, how much would you have today if you purchased stock instead of an Apple product? See for yourself in the table below. A huge thanks to everymac.com for the original prices and release dates. All values…