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How the “Frontier” Became the Slogan of Uncontrolled AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been billed as the next frontier of humanity: the newly available expanse whose exploration …
From Computational Complexity
Post Mordem on an April Fool's day joke
Recall that on April Fools Day I had a post about R(5) being discovered via a collaboration of Math and History. Many readers emailed me asking how many people...
From Computational Complexity
You should apply for STOC and/or CCC travel money (students)
Once again there is some money from ACM and from NSF for students to goto STOC, and I am the one to send the applications to. The link for info on how to apply...
From Computational Complexity
Is the rule of threes a meta-urban legend?
Roger Ebert died on April 4, 2013 Margaret Thatcher died on April 8, 2013. I have heard the urban legend that celebrities die in threes. Does anyone really believe...
From Computational Complexity
A nice case of interdisciplinary research
All of the math and history in this post is elaborated on in my paper here. Are there any interesting applications of PURE math to the Social Sciences or History...
From Computational Complexity
Counting Descriptions- a ``new'' complexity class
Let nσ(w) is the number of σ's in w. We often ask our students about languages like { w | na(w) = 2nb(w) } (CFL but not REG). Lets formally define languages that...
From Computational Complexity
Will they use EasyPope to pick the Pope in 2050?
AP press 2050: The new pope was elected in just 2 hours using EasyPope, the software based on EasyChair, software designed to deciding which papers get into a conference...
From Computational Complexity
What if they gave an exam and nobody came?
A professor tells the class that he will use the highest grade to set the curve. The students all conspire to NOT take the exam, so the highest score is 0, so they...
From Computational Complexity
Do we ever NEED the adv pumping lemma for Reg langs?
Recall the Pumping Lemma and the Advanced Pumping Lemma for Regular languages: Pump. Lemma: If L is regular and infinite then there exists n such that for all...
From Computational Complexity
Enos, Oona, sqrt(3), and Aaronson
My darling does crossword puzzles and sometimes asks my help: Darling: Bill, Slaughter in Cooperstown- whats the answer? Bill: Enos. There was a serial murderer...
From Computational Complexity
Are most lower bounds really upper bounds?
Recently Daniel Apon (grad student of Jon Katz at UMCP, but he also hangs out with me) proved a LOWER BOUND by proving an UPPER BOUND. His paper is here. I have...
From Computational Complexity
Proving DFA-langs closed under concat and * without using equiv to NDFA's
While teaching the Equiv of DFA, NDFA, Reg exps, I wanted to impress upon my students that the best way to show DFA-langs are closed under concat and * is to first...
From Computational Complexity
The (il)logic of fandom
(UMCP is having an REU (Research Experience for Undergradutes) this summer on Combinatorial Algorithms Applied Research. If you are an ugrad, go to that site and...
From Computational Complexity
TCS online series- could this work?
Oded Regev, Anindya De and Thomas Vidick we are about to start an online TCS seminar series. See here for details, though I have the first few paragraphs below...
From Computational Complexity
A New application of Ramsey Theory to a Geometry problem
All of the material summazized here is in a new paper by Gasarch and Zbarsky. You can find that paper here) Consider the following problem: Let {p1,...,pn}...
From Computational Complexity
paperfree?- we are not there yet
Last time I taught I had to decide if I would HAND OUT the HW or just say its posted (NOTE- I post it in any case.) This may seem old fashion but I think there...
From Computational Complexity
Do daughtered candidates to better- Look at the Data!
Someone in my election night party predicted Obama because: Ever since women got the right to vote (1920) if one candidate has a daughter and one does not, then...
From Computational Complexity
Goodstein Sequences (Its his 100th birthday!)
LANCE: Bill, on Dec 15, 2012 it will be Reuben Goodstein's 100th birthday. BILL: Is he still alive? Will there be a conference in his honor? Free Food? Cake? ...
From Computational Complexity
Book review column
(I am a bit behind on posting links to my book review column- this blog post is about the Third (of four) for the year 2012, and the fourth of four has alreadyhere...
From Computational Complexity
Where is the youth of TCS/questions on Nash Eq (guest post by VJ)
(Guest post by Vijay Vazirani.) On Theory Day on Nov 30, 2012 Vijay Vazarani gave a talk: New (Practical) Complementary Pivot Algorithms for Market Equilibrium...
From Computational Complexity