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For the record, I submitted the article with the original article title, as I always attempt to do. (Some articles have more than one "original" title. In doubt

For the record, I submitted the article with the original article title, as I always attempt to do. (Some articles have more than one "original" title. In doubtful cases, I read the source code of an article, to distinguish top-level headings from sharing titles from HTML titles, and choose the title that I think is most informative for a Hacker News readership.) In this case, I submitted the title from The Guardian with the "Attack on pentagon" title, and some member of the moderation team here changed it after a while. I'm gratified that this submission has received so many thoughtful comments both from mathematically trained onlookers and from amateurs at this level of mathematics like me. (The author of the original article has deep training and experience in mathematics, and is a regular mathematics columnist for The Guardian who likes word play in his column titles.)

nickysielicki 11y ago
I just read your HN bio. You're a very interesting guy! I'm an undergraduate student and one of my favorite conversation starters when I meet new friends majoring in STEM-fields is how they would change primary and secondary math education. Because we're just 18-22 year olds, the concepts that we struggled with and the methods we liked are still fresh in our mind... Though as each year goes by and I learn more advanced maths I find myself going back on how I felt before. I hope that this bickering over his choice of a title and whether or not it's a pun doesn't rub you the wrong way. I think it's a great article otherwise and it's an incredibly interesting problem that made me think. Thank you for posting it! For what it's worth, I don't really fault the author for coming up with this title. Ultimately the responsibility falls on his editor and I think his editor should have stopped it. Others are free to disagree with me (and by the downvotes, I'd say most are.)

nickysielicki 11y ago

I just read your HN bio. You're a very interesting guy! I'm an undergraduate student and one of my favorite conversation starters when I meet new friends majoring in STEM-fields is how they would change primary and secondary math education. Because we're just 18-22 year olds, the concepts that we struggled with and the methods we liked are still fresh in our mind... Though as each year goes by and I learn more advanced maths I find myself going back on how I felt before. I hope that this bickering over his choice of a title and whether or not it's a pun doesn't rub you the wrong way. I think it's a great article otherwise and it's an incredibly interesting problem that made me think. Thank you for posting it! For what it's worth, I don't really fault the author for coming up with this title. Ultimately the responsibility falls on his editor and I think his editor should have stopped it. Others are free to disagree with me (and by the downvotes, I'd say most are.)