Communications of the ACM
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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
A short History of Crypto
I taught a 3-week summer course to High School Students called Computer Science: A Hands Off Approach which did some theory. One thing I did was the following...
From Computational Complexity
Tell me more about Alice and Bob
A while back my parents were in town on a weekend when I was scheduled to give a talk to HS students who had done well on the Maryland math competition. Logistics...
From Computational Complexity
Two cheers for the Pardon ot Turing. But not three.
As I am sure readers of this blog know Alan Turing was prosecuted for homosexuality in 1952, forced into hormone treatment, and committed suicide in 1954 (I had...
From Computational Complexity
Our Journal is 99 44/100 percent pure!!
Sometimes we are asked to evaluate how good a journal or conference formally(Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, Better-than-being-poked-by-a-stick,pass the stick)...
From Computational Complexity
Analogs between Quantum Computng and Parallelism
(Jon Katz wanted me to mention this: A wise man once noted that there are fewer quantum algorithms than thereare quantum-algorithms textbooks! But there is still...
From Computational Complexity
Inventions are Non-Communative: Amarzon vs Amarzon
(Tal Rabin, Shubhangi Saraf and Lisa Zhang asked me to remind you to publicize this: the bi-annual Women in theory (WIT workshop), NYC, May 28-30, 2014. Apps due...
From Computational Complexity
Global Warming and the Axiom of Choice
Who was the first scientist to warn of Global Warning? These questions are complicated, but I would say it was Bing Crosby in a paper called White Christmas. Here...
From Computational Complexity
The Institute for proving Graph Isomorphism is in P
(This post was inspired by Adam Winklers awesome book Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America. Disclaimers one: Adam Winkler is my cousin and...
From Computational Complexity
Four answers to the Recip problem
In my last post I asked you to solve the following question which was from the Maryland Math Competition: The inequalities 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/6 = 1 and 1/2 + 1/3 +...
From Computational Complexity
A problem on Receiprocals
(I thought I had posted this a while back but I can't find it in past blogs so I think I did not. I DID post a diff problem on reciprocals.) Here is the question...
From Computational Complexity
My Pope Number is 2: The Smaller World Hypothesis
I proofread Piergiogrio Odilfreddi's book (which is on Lance's List of Favorite Complexity Books) for which I got a generous acknowledgment. I have also visited...
From Computational Complexity
University of Maryland Job Posting Mentions Quantum Computing explicitly!
The University of Maryland at College Park has its job posting up (its been up for a while). You can look at it here. I It lists THREE areas but says that they...
From Computational Complexity
Teaching without a net
As a grad student I was teaching the linear-time Median finding algorithm and I FORGOT that I needed to solve the more general problem of selection. After less...
From Computational Complexity
Who controls what is taught- the dept or the students?
There is a debate about the questions: To what extent do we give them what they NEED? what they WANT? These questions permeate many other discussions of education...
From Computational Complexity
P vs NP is Elementary? No-- P vs NP is ON Elementary
As I am sure you all know, the TV show Elementary (Premise- Sherlock Homes in Modern Day NY. He emails and Texts! Watson is a female! and...) had an episode that...
From Computational Complexity
Long Tails and Fat Heads
Sometimes words or phrases are used in MATH and then spread to the REAL WORLD. I have blogged about how the terms Prisoner's Dilemma has become a real-world-phrase...
From Computational Complexity
Crystal Math- What NUMB3RS and BREAKING BAD both get wrong
The TV show Numb3rs had as a premise that a GENIUS mathematician could help solve crimes. Is this true? I rather doubt you need a GENIUS- though of course some...
From Computational Complexity
STOC CFP still delayed- but I was asked to pass this along
Since there were comments on the blog about the STOC and CCC CFP not being out yet I mailed various people who are in-the-know. I got email from David Shmoys (STOC...
From Computational Complexity
Did YOU think the NSA could factor fast?
Before the recent revelations about the NSA (see Lances Post and Scott's post )I would tell my class, when teaching P and NP, We have very good reasons to think...
From Computational Complexity