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
How do legit fields of knowledge decide between competing fields? How does Astrology?
Euler was born April 15, 1707. Hence by the Western Astrology that we all ignore he is an Aries. However, I recently heard about another way (also worth ignoring)...
From Computational Complexity
When a+b is harder than b+a
Is 1+4 a harder calculation than 4+1? It may be if you are 2+3 years old. I asked my 7-2 year old great niece Noelle the following sequence of questions. I include...
From Computational Complexity
The Erdos- de Bruijn theorem
The mathematician Nicolaas Govert de Bruijn passed away on Feb 17, 2012. The number of things named after him is quite large. I will discuss the Erdos-de Bruijn...
From Computational Complexity
Presidents Day Poll- what does the youth of american think about....
(In honor of President's day which was two days ago.) On Presidents Day last year I had my classes fill out a form saying who they thought was the best, second...
From Computational Complexity
People solve math problems for the prize money! NOT!
Why do people or organizations offer Prize Money for mathematics? Paul Erdos: He offered money to solve problems that he found interesting. I assume he wanted...
From Computational Complexity
STOC 2012 accepts are posted
STOC 2012 paper accepts are posted here. Travel support for grad students (which I am involved with) is posted here. On a quick glance: I tried counting thehere...
From Computational Complexity
The 17x17 problem SOLVED! (also 18x18)
THE 17x17 PROBLEM HAS BEEN SOLVED!!!!! On Nov 30, 2009 I posted here the following challenge: If someone emails me a 4-coloring of 17x17 with no monochromatic...
From Computational Complexity
Dusting off my bookshelf I find a book on FORTRAN
The following quote is from the back of a book that I dusted off and took off of my shelf recently: FORTRAN is one of the oldest high-level languages and remains...
From Computational Complexity
A result of Specker in Recursive Combinatorics
Ernst Specker passed away in December. He has 91. He was not the oldest living mathematician. That title likely belongs to Sergey Nikolsky. A former student ofhere...
From Computational Complexity
Guest post on ITCS by Chazelle
(Requested announcement: Calling all Women PhD Students (and a few undergrads) We will be having our bi-annual Women in Theory (WIT) Workshop this year in Princeton...
From Computational Complexity
Teaching an Honors Section of Discrete Mathematics
A few years ago I was assigned to teach the HONORS section of Discrete Math (a course for sophomores who have had a year of programming and a year a calculus). They...
From Computational Complexity
How important are the Fib numbers in math? in Nature? In History of Math books?
The following quotes is from In the book Algebra in Ancient and Modern Times by V.S. Varadarajan. Fibonacci numbers thus grow very fast with N, indeed in geometric...
From Computational Complexity
The Conjunction Paradox
In Yesterday's post you were told about Susan: Susan is 31 years old, single, outspoken and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student she was deeply...
From Computational Complexity
Rank these possibilities by probability
Readers- I want you to answer this question and post your answers as comments. I will tell you WHY I am asking tommorow. Susan is 28 years old, single, outspoken...
From Computational Complexity
Is there a NICE gadget for showing PLANAR HC is NPC?
(I have already posted this question on CS Theory Stack Exchange.) If you know that 3-COL is NPC then you can prove that PLANAR 3-COL is NPC by a NICE gadget...
From Computational Complexity
Romney vs. Aaronson
How are Mitt Romney and Scott Aaronson similar? Different? Similarities: Both live in Massachusetts. Actually, Scott lives there but its not clear where Mitt...
From Computational Complexity
Solution to the reciprocals problem
In my last blog I asked you to look at this problem, try to solve it, and tell me if you think it is too hard for a HS competition. (I meant to post this on WED...
From Computational Complexity
Is this problem too hard for a HS Math Competition
The Univ of MD HS Math Competition has two parts. Part I is 25 multiple choice questions in 2 hours (4 points for a correct answer, -2 for an incorrect answer)....
From Computational Complexity
What is a Breakthrough?
The recent discussion on Matrix Mult inspires the general question of WHAT IS A BREAKTHROUGH? Last year I tried to get an intelligent discussion on this topic but...
From Computational Complexity