Dispatches from the Frontiers of Mathematics

• 2012-12-24

  

  Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays/Festivus for the rest of us.

  Have a festive fractal snowflake. 

  Source: walkingrandomly.com

• 2012-10-26

  I’ve begun yelling at Lanski in the margins of my textbook, and then crossing it out when what I was yelling about makes sense.

  This is not a sane activity. 

  Abstract Algebra Lanski math mathematics helen

• 2012-10-22

  dontkeepmehere:

  I have maths I want to do but do not need to do. I have maths I need to do but do not want to do because it is review and boring.

  Pretty much.

  erin

  Source: dontkeepmehere

• 2012-10-21

  VCA, ch7

  The Argument Principle just started to seem obvious. Send help.

  if i were needham i'd be pleased tristan needham visual complex analysis math the argument principle erin

• 2012-09-26

  One says, “Aha! So *this* is how Wiggler’s Lemma generalizes! The twistoploppic theomorphism is the same for *even* clackdoodles, but becomes a hypertwistoploppic pseudotheomorphism for *odd* clackdoodles. That’s so *beautiful*!

  — Douglas Hofstadter in Metamagical Themas on what it’s like to do mathematics.

  WHY NO ITALICS IN QUOTES hello cousin mine hofstadter math math quotes metamagical themas quotes theomorphisms this is very accurate erin

• 2012-09-25

  I don’t

  …remember back when you didn’t like linguistics.

  Did I scare you?

  See you soon, thank goodness (aaand now the Wicked soundtrack dances in my head. And now ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. Excellent).

  And maybe we’ll make a Reunion Post and hit each other with noodles and I get to make the rules because I’m older, though older cousin is not as much of a thing as older sibling. Do languages that have single words for older brother and older sister have have single words for older (possibly not just gendered but much more relationship-specified) cousin? Relatedly (clever aren’t I), you know how Persian has specific words for father’s sister, father’s brother’s wife, and so on? Does anyone know whether there are obvious extensions of this system for when the father’s brothers start marrying men?

  (And no, I’m not intending to marry an Iranian girl. I just thought of this when, in the next-most-recent set of parentheses, I remembered that there are eight words designating different patruelian relationships.)

  I bet you all wish Helen had sole authorship of this blog. Or that I went to bed at midnight.

  yes i still have the copy i stole from fitch patruelian relationships erin

• 2012-09-24

  Who wants to do computational linguistics?

  Well.

  It has been a long time, non?

  And in response to the above question, I do.

  Now, cousin mine, you’ll be getting the full rundown onwhat exactly I’m doingwhen I see you in… two days. But for everyone else, here’s a brief summary:

  The French language, like all formal systems, can be modeled mathematically. I am committed to modelling the use of clitic pronouns using formal algebraic systems, and then applying these to algorithms used by the brain to process language as bilingual children acquire language.

  Any advice— if any of my lovely followers know anything about these things— please, please, please feel free to message me here, or on my other blog, if Erin decides she doesn’t want to also read all my linguistics work (but I strongly suspect she, too, is interested in it).

  mathematics computational linguistics algorithms formal systems linguistics french pronouns clitic pronouns y en le la les etc. help wanted remember back when I didn't like linguistics helen

• 2012-09-09

  Words and Phrases that Mathematicians Overuse

  backwardinduction:

  • By definition
  • Modulo
  • Arbitrarily
  • For some arbitrary n
  • Such that
  • If and only if
  • Suppose/assume
  • We

  math language erin

  Source: backwardinduction

• 2012-08-31

  Drawing a line through one point is generally held to be dangerous.

  — Eliezer Yudkowsky

  him again quote generalization math Eliezer Yudkowsky erin

• 2012-08-04

  A Sailor Returns From The Sea

  The game, cousin mine, is afoot again. Tomorrow (well, today calendarially, but I try not to allow myself to be bossed around by grids) I crack Burris back open and continue on.

  So starting tomorrow: actual math again under the Helen tag.

  Although this is all assuming I don’t wake up tomorrow unable to move, curse the existence of ticks, and sleep until 1600.

  Math Burris Expect great things formal logic but not too great because I'm uncomfortable with that kind of pressure helen