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From Computational Complexity

The two fears about technology- one correct, one incorrect

When the luddites smashed loom machines their supporters (including Lord Byron, Ada Lovelaces father) made two arguments in favor of the luddites (I am sure IWeapons...

From Computational Complexity

The k=1 case is FUN, the k=2 case is fun, the k\ge 3 case is... you decide.

 (All of the math in this post is in here.) The following problem can be given as a FUN recreational problem to HS students or even younger: (I am sure that many...

From Computational Complexity

Open: PROVE the pumping and reductions can't prove every non-reg lang non-reg.

Whenever I post on regular langs, whatever aspect I am looking at, I get a comment telling me that we should stop proving the pumping lemma (and often ask me to...

From Computational Complexity

Reductions between formal languages

Let EQ = {w : number of a's = number of b's } Let EQO = { anbn : n ∈  N} (so its Equal and in Order) Typically we do the following: Prove EQO is not regular...

From Computational Complexity

Michael Cohen

When I first saw posts about Michael Cohen (see here, here, here) I wondered is that the same Michael Cohen who I knew as a HS student? It is.  I share one memory...

From Computational Complexity

Is the Textbook Market doomed?

STORY ONE: I always tell my class that its OKAY if they don't have the latest edition of the textbook, and if they can find it a  cheap, an earlier edition (often...

From Computational Complexity

Science fiction viewers used to embrace diversity (or did they) and now they don't (or do they)

(This post is inspired by the choice of a female to be the next Doctor on the TV show Dr. Who. Note that you can't say `the next Dr. Who will be female' since Dr...

From Computational Complexity

Acronyms and PHP

Whenever I teach discrete math and use FML to mean Formula the students laugh since its a common acroynm for  Fuck My Life. Now they laugh, and I say I know why...

From Computational Complexity

A problem I thought was interesting- now...

On Nate Silver's page he sometimes (might be once a week) has a column edited by Oliver Roeder of problems. Pretty much math problems though sometimes not quite...

From Computational Complexity

The Scarecrow's math being wrong was intentional

In 2009 I had a post about Movie mistakes (see here). One of them was the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz after he got a Diploma (AH- but not a brain) he said The...

From Computational Complexity

Statistics on my dead cat policy- is there a correlation?

When I teach a small (at most 40) students I often have the dead-cat policy for late HW: HW is due on Tuesday. But there may be things that come up that don't ...

From Computational Complexity

either pi is algebraic or some journals let in an incorrect paper!/the 15 most famous transcendental numbers

Someone has published three papers claiming that π is 17 -sqrt(3) which is really =3.1435935394... Someone else has published eight papers claiming π is (14...

From Computational Complexity

What is unusual about this MIT grad student in Applied Math?

(Thanks to Rachel Folowoshele for bringing this to my attention) John Urschel is a grad student in applied math at MIT. His webpage is here. Some students gohere...

From Computational Complexity

Should we care if a job candidate does not know the social and ethical implications of their work (Second Blog Post inspired by Rogawarys Moral Character Paper)

Phillip Rogaway's article on the The Moral character of Cryptographic Work (see here) brings up so many issues that it could be the topics for at least 5 blog...

From Computational Complexity

Harvard punishes some social organizations. Why?

Over at  the blog Bits and Pieces my adviser Harry Lewis (is he still my adviser 32 years after I got my PhD? Yes) has written many posts about Harvard's decision...

From Computational Complexity

What are the top Computer science programs for women?

What are the top Computer Science Programs for Women? How would one even answer the question? Some people did a study based on National Center for Education Statistics...

From Computational Complexity

I would call these Galois Games but I can't

Here is a game (Darling says I only blog about non-fun games. This post will NOT prove her wrong.) Let D be a domain,  d ≥  1 and 0 ≠ a0  ∈ D. There are two players...

From Computational Complexity

89944 Hat Problems

I've blogged about different hat problems a few times (see here). The question arises: How many hat problems are there? The answer is really infinite (literally)...

From Computational Complexity

Solutions to some Hat Problem AND some points of interest.

In my last blog here I asked three (known) hat problems since they may be new to you (one of them I just learned last week) and I had a point to make about them...

From Computational Complexity

Two hat problems you may or may not have seen but I have a point to make about one of them

Hat problems are fun and often require clever solutions. I have posted about one type of hat problem here. In this post I ask three. For two of them I have a point...
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