5 ms·
Demystifying Tupper's Formula
- brutusborn 3y agoThat is amazing and so simple, thanks for sharing. Kind of reminds me of the fast square root story.
- userbinator 3y agoThe meaning of digital data depends entirely on its interpretation. You can interpret a string of bits as an integer, a bitmap, machine instructions, text, etc. Once you have that idea firmly in mind, Tupper's formula doesn't feel any more surprising than e.g. the fact that the PDF spec is itself a PDF, or a physical book describing the process of bookbinding. It's self-referential, but not quite a quine.
- wumms 3y ago> let d = (y / 17n) >> (17n * x + y % 17n); > return d % 2n == 1n; TIL(JavaScript): A BigInt is created by appending n to the end of an integer literal — 17n — or by calling the function BigInt(). https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/BigInt https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...
- cabalamat 3y ago> TIL(JavaScript): A BigInt is created by appending n to the end of an integer literal — 17n Am I the only person who thinks that looks ugly? I initially misread it as a typo for 17*n. In Python it would just be 17. Python knows when an int is a bigint, because it is big.
- ygra 3y agoType suffixes on literals are fairly typical in languages using C-style syntax, so for JS I'd expect it to make more sense that way than doing it like Python does. Apart from the usual problems you'd get when your numbers suddenly behave very different than before. That has to be an opt-in syntax change.
- eagleseye 3y agoI clicked expecting an article on a secret formula used by tupperware but was positively surprised by some pretty math in the morning. Nice breakdown, thanks!
- fencepost 3y agoThe secret formula of Tupperware was to get people like my mother to buy it. So. Much. Tupperware.
- rollcat 3y agoI mean it's very good. I have some 25 year old Tupperware in my kitchen and it's still doing absolutely great. Glass eventually breaks, Tupperware plates live. Cheap boxes sometimes break in less than a year. It's worth buying for the longevity alone.
- goeiedaggoeie 3y agopolymers degrade, especially with heat or UV. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/microplastics-are-in-our-bodies-how-much-do-they-harm-us https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/micro... Plastics have been a blessing to us humans and a curse to nature.
- userbinator 3y agoTupperware is an example of very durable and safe plastic.
- goeiedaggoeie 3y agoMaybe our definitions of the word "safe" differ. Tupperware before 2010 had BPA in it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CleaningTips/comments/pzby12/what_is_this_white_stuff_that_shows_up_on_my/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CleaningTips/comments/pzby12/what_i... https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/warning-after-old-tupperware-tests-positive-for-lead-and-arsenic-c-402928 https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/warning-afte...
- mathisfun123 3y agoYou can use basically the same ideas to arrive at ANS compression (current sota, in terms of speed).
- OscarCunningham 3y agoTupper did eventually make a genuinely self-referential formula. Trávník has made a very impressive one with a smooth typeface. https://jtra.cz/stuff/essays/math-self-reference-smooth/index.html https://jtra.cz/stuff/essays/math-self-reference-smooth/inde...
- myspy 3y agoI didn't click the link and came here for a Tupperware discussion thinking they use some weird plastic and the green place did some research on that.
- pfedak 3y agoThis year's MIT Mystery Hunt had a puzzle requiring you to implement increasingly complicated image-generating formulas: https://puzzles.mit.edu/2023/puzzlefactory.place/puzzles/graph-it https://puzzles.mit.edu/2023/puzzlefactory.place/puzzles/gra...