4 ms·

I think people are downvoting you because you seem like you're attacking a strawman. We all agree that 1) it's an interesting math problem 2) for real-life inst

by zodiac 5y ago

I think people are downvoting you because you seem like you're attacking a strawman. We all agree that 1) it's an interesting math problem 2) for real-life instances, the FP64 solution is good enough. For e.g. when you say "anything beyond that is likely unnecessary gold plating", I know you mean "exact algorithms (like the PSPACE algorithm) are unnecessary for solving real-life instances", but without context it sounds like you're saying "there is no conceivable reason people should care about the exact algorithms"

varelse 5y ago
Back in the day, the downvotes here would flow like a river at the suggestion that an engineering career behooved one to understand Calculus and Linear Algebra with Statistics and Differential Equations if possible thrown in for good measure because Peter Thiel said college degrees were worthless and he was even offering $100K to some lucky winners to prove his point. Admittedly, I would have probably taken that offer had I been 18 and then gone to college afterwards, but it seemed to deliver mixed results. For the above math comes up again and again writing software. Pure math like real analysis, graduate level algebra, number theory and topology not so much. I'm guessing the rise of AI demonstrated the previous mindset against math was poppycock all along so now we've gone to the opposite extreme and made it a religion? I think people are bringing their own biases into that interpretation and you are right about which biases. But, also, not my problem. My personal bias is that I recognize this problem as exactly the sort of thing that gets brought up as a gotcha interview question by people who couldn't come up with that exact solution themselves yet understand it just enough to use it to make an interviewee squirm.

4 ms·

I think people are downvoting you because you seem like you're attacking a strawman. We all agree that 1) it's an interesting math problem 2) for real-life inst

by zodiac 5y ago

varelse 5y ago
Back in the day, the downvotes here would flow like a river at the suggestion that an engineering career behooved one to understand Calculus and Linear Algebra with Statistics and Differential Equations if possible thrown in for good measure because Peter Thiel said college degrees were worthless and he was even offering $100K to some lucky winners to prove his point. Admittedly, I would have probably taken that offer had I been 18 and then gone to college afterwards, but it seemed to deliver mixed results. For the above math comes up again and again writing software. Pure math like real analysis, graduate level algebra, number theory and topology not so much. I'm guessing the rise of AI demonstrated the previous mindset against math was poppycock all along so now we've gone to the opposite extreme and made it a religion? I think people are bringing their own biases into that interpretation and you are right about which biases. But, also, not my problem. My personal bias is that I recognize this problem as exactly the sort of thing that gets brought up as a gotcha interview question by people who couldn't come up with that exact solution themselves yet understand it just enough to use it to make an interviewee squirm.