4 ms·

I’m personally pretty excited for this…once I can figure out what it means for programmers.

radicaldreamer 4y ago
Maybe in a hundred years one of these discoveries will unlock time/FTL travel or wormholes or something... maybe a jailbreak for the simulation we're in.
- swader999 4y ago
  You can already time travel and do worm holes with astral projection. I'm no good at it though.
professoretc 4y ago
I just want to make pretty pictures like the ones in the article.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- perihelions 4y ago
  This particular one is made in Blender and you can probably just ask the authors on Reddit. - "This video is a collaboration David Lowry-Duda, that actually started here on the /r/math Reddit thread." https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/m0w1qs/a_modular_form_visualised_in_3d_ramanujan_delta/ https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/m0w1qs/a_modular_form... ...Which (probably) refers to this thread: - "I'd like to talk to you about producing a similar visualization for modular forms. These are inherently "just complex functions", but they're nontrivial to compute. But in two recent papers, I study how to compute modular forms and various visualizations of modular forms." - "I'm knowledgeable about various 2d plotting, but I don't actually know anything about 3d plotting. I'm aware that blender exists and that shaders exist, but that's the extent of my knowledge. This is a major aspect of complex function visualization that I'm missing." https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/k53813/visualizing_functions_on_the_complex_plane/gei5rng/ https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/k53813/visualizing_fu...
vecter 4y ago
Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but 99.9999% or possibly even 100% of this kind of abstract mathematics will never have any meaningful impact on day-to-day software engineering.
- kevinventullo 4y ago
  I wouldn’t say 100%. As a former number theorist-turned-SWE I’ve done a bit of tinkering applying ideas from basic p-adic analysis to low-level computing: https://kevinventullo.com/2020/12/21/2-adic-logarithms-and-fast-exponentiation/ https://kevinventullo.com/2020/12/21/2-adic-logarithms-and-f... Nothing too earth-shattering but it’s plausible something generally useful could come out of it.
- still_grokking 4y ago
  Well, actually abstract nonsense is especially influential in the field of programming.
- kangda123 4y ago
  Wasn't category theory rejected even by many mathematicians as too abstract to be useful? (i.e. show non-trivial results). I think for many things those super abstract theories let us take some small steps that are not apparent to wider audience.
- larryfreeman 4y ago
  I keep hearing this about abstract mathematics "never" having an impact because it is too abstract and relates to pure mathematics. It's not true. Mathematics is a formal system that provides insights on surprising patterns. Surprising patterns can almost always be applied outside their intended area. And not surprisingly, non-Euclidean geometry and even the inability for mathematics to find certain proofs related to primes has resulted in breakthroughs in other areas. Surprising patterns take time to have effect mostly because they are not generally known until some genius is able to apply them outside their intended area. I am 99.999% certain that you are wrong to say that "this kind of abstract mathematics will 'never' have any meaningful impact on day-to-day software engineering." I would be less certain if you replaced "never" with "will probably not have a significant impact in the short term".
DeathArrow 4y ago
I am a programmer but I don't think every newsbit on HN has something to do with programming or CS at large.

Maybe in a hundred years one of these discoveries will unlock time/FTL travel or wormholes or something... maybe a jailbreak for the simulation we're in.

swader999 4y ago
You can already time travel and do worm holes with astral projection. I'm no good at it though.

professoretc 4y ago

I just want to make pretty pictures like the ones in the article.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
perihelions 4y ago
This particular one is made in Blender and you can probably just ask the authors on Reddit. - "This video is a collaboration David Lowry-Duda, that actually started here on the /r/math Reddit thread." https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/m0w1qs/a_modular_form_visualised_in_3d_ramanujan_delta/ https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/m0w1qs/a_modular_form... ...Which (probably) refers to this thread: - "I'd like to talk to you about producing a similar visualization for modular forms. These are inherently "just complex functions", but they're nontrivial to compute. But in two recent papers, I study how to compute modular forms and various visualizations of modular forms." - "I'm knowledgeable about various 2d plotting, but I don't actually know anything about 3d plotting. I'm aware that blender exists and that shaders exist, but that's the extent of my knowledge. This is a major aspect of complex function visualization that I'm missing." https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/k53813/visualizing_functions_on_the_complex_plane/gei5rng/ https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/k53813/visualizing_fu...

vecter 4y ago

Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but 99.9999% or possibly even 100% of this kind of abstract mathematics will never have any meaningful impact on day-to-day software engineering.

kevinventullo 4y ago
I wouldn’t say 100%. As a former number theorist-turned-SWE I’ve done a bit of tinkering applying ideas from basic p-adic analysis to low-level computing: https://kevinventullo.com/2020/12/21/2-adic-logarithms-and-fast-exponentiation/ https://kevinventullo.com/2020/12/21/2-adic-logarithms-and-f... Nothing too earth-shattering but it’s plausible something generally useful could come out of it.
still_grokking 4y ago
Well, actually abstract nonsense is especially influential in the field of programming.
kangda123 4y ago
Wasn't category theory rejected even by many mathematicians as too abstract to be useful? (i.e. show non-trivial results). I think for many things those super abstract theories let us take some small steps that are not apparent to wider audience.
larryfreeman 4y ago
I keep hearing this about abstract mathematics "never" having an impact because it is too abstract and relates to pure mathematics. It's not true. Mathematics is a formal system that provides insights on surprising patterns. Surprising patterns can almost always be applied outside their intended area. And not surprisingly, non-Euclidean geometry and even the inability for mathematics to find certain proofs related to primes has resulted in breakthroughs in other areas. Surprising patterns take time to have effect mostly because they are not generally known until some genius is able to apply them outside their intended area. I am 99.999% certain that you are wrong to say that "this kind of abstract mathematics will 'never' have any meaningful impact on day-to-day software engineering." I would be less certain if you replaced "never" with "will probably not have a significant impact in the short term".

DeathArrow 4y ago

I am a programmer but I don't think every newsbit on HN has something to do with programming or CS at large.