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From Computational Complexity

Technology: 1966, 2006, 2023.

 In 2013 I wrote a blog to celebrate Lance's 50th birthday by contrasting what things were like when Lance was 10 to when he was 50. That post is here.But lifeThe...

From Computational Complexity

Soliciting open problems in honore of Luca T for my Open Problems Column

As you all know Luca Trevisan, a Giant in our field, passed away at the too-young age of 52. See Lance's post on Luca HERE. As the editor of the SIGACT News Open...

From Computational Complexity

Should Prover and Verifier have been Pat and Vanna?

LANCE: I had my first Quanta Article published! I explore computation, complexity, randomness and learning and feeling the machine.BILL: Feels to me like a mashup...

From Computational Complexity

CFG-Kolm-complexity is singleton sets with Lance and Bill

For this post all Context Free Grammars (henceforth CFGs) are assumed to be in Chomsky Normal Form. The size of a CFG \(G\)  is the number of rules. We denote this...

From Computational Complexity

FOCS 2024 Test of Time Award. Call for nominations and my opinion

 The call for nominations for the Test of Time Award at FOCS 2024 has been posted here.Eligibility and past winners are here.Points1) It is good to have an award...

From Computational Complexity

National BBQ day vs World Quantum Day

 After my post on different holiDAYS, here, such as Talk like a Pirate Day, and Raegan Revor day, two other Days were brought to my attention1) Lance emailed me...

From Computational Complexity

I don't do that well when the Jeopardy category is Math

Bill and Darling are watching Jeopardy.DARLING: Bill, one of the categories is MATH TALK. You will kick butt!BILL: Not clear. I doubt they will have the least number...

From Computational Complexity

What is Closed Form? The Horse Numbers are an illustration

In the book Those Fascinating Numbers by Jean-Marie De Konick they find interesting (or `interesting') things to say about many numbers. I reviewed the book inhere...

From Computational Complexity

May the fourth be with you. To many -days?

(This post was inspired by Rachel F, a prior REU-CAAR student, emailing me wishing me a happy Star Wars Day.)   I am writing this on May 4 which is Star Wars day...

From Computational Complexity

Math Thoughts Inspired by the TV show Succession

I watched Succession one-episode-a-day on treadmill for 39 days. I'm glad I did this in 2023 since Season 2 aired its last show on Oct 19, 2019, and Season 3 had...

From Computational Complexity

Intelligent Comments on Bill's G.H. Hardy/Avi W post that we did not post.

I posted (see here) about Avi Wigderson being a counterexample to two of G.H. Hardy's opinions:1) Hardy thought Math was a young man's game. I got some good comments...

From Computational Complexity

Avi Wigderson is a counterexample to TWO stupid thoughts of G.H. Hardy

 Recently1) Avi Wigderson won the Turing Award (See blog posts by Fortnow-here, Scott-here, Lipton-Regan here, and the ACM announcement here).  The last time Ihere...

From Computational Complexity

Rance Cleaveland passed away on March 27, 2024. He will be missed

 My friend and colleague Rance Cleaveland passed away on March 27, 2024 at the age of 62.  He was a professor at The University of Maryland at College Park in the...

From Computational Complexity

Answer to Question. MetaQuestion remains unsolved

 In a prior post I asked the following question:find x,y,z positive natural numbers such that the following is true:$$ \frac{x}{y+z} + \frac{y}{x+z} + \frac{z}{x...

From Computational Complexity

A Math Question and a Meta Question

 1) Question: find x,y,z natural numbers such that the following is true:$$ \frac{x}{y+z} + \frac{y}{x+z} + \frac{z}{x+y} = 4. $$I was first presented the problem...

From Computational Complexity

I know what A-B-C-D-F mean but what about V? X? HP?

 I am looking at LOTS of transcript of students who applied for my program REU-CAAR so I sometimes come across grades that I don't understand. The transcript does...

From Computational Complexity

Grad Student Visit Day: That was then, this is now.

(Harry Lewis helped me with this post.) March 15 was UMCP Computer Science Grad Student Visit Day. I suspect many of my readers are at schools that had their Grad...

From Computational Complexity

The Thrill of Seeing Your Name in Print is Gone

 In the 1980's and 1990's when I got a paper accepted to a journal or conference  it seemed important to see it in print. Having a paper accepted was nice, butthis...

From Computational Complexity

The letter to recommend John Nash was ``The Best Recomendation Letter Ever''- I do not think so.

There is an article about the letter Richard Duffin wrote for John Nash that helped John Nash get into Princeton: here. The title of the article is The Best Recommendation...

From Computational Complexity

When is it worth the time and effort to verify a proof FORMALLY?

(This post was inspired by Lance's tweet and later post on part of IP=PSPACE being formally verified.) We now have the means to verify that a proof (prob just some...
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