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How does one know the application of such a Math concept for a particular software problem? I couldn't guess in a million years.

manvillej 2y ago
you go to school for it. Stats, applied mathematics, operations research, industrial engineering. I went for industrial engineering. we learned the math as pure math, then the math as free language problems, then how to identify and collect data to identify their attributes, then simulate and verify those processes, then test for variations in the underlying assumptions of those processes. They never really did teach me to code well in a language that was useful, I had to pick that one up myself.
travisjungroth 2y ago
Other option as someone who didn’t go to school. Learn a bunch of methods. Learn a bunch of problems. Match them up. “A bunch” is actually a small enough number that brute forcing it works fine. If you have 20 methods in your head, you’re far ahead of most people. You don’t even have to have them in your head. There’s an underutilized technology called a “list” where you just write things down one after another. Go down your list of methods. You’ll be able to throw out 90% of them because of something obvious. You could be up to speed on this in a day of clicking though Wikipedia if you have some stats knowledge. Two days of you don’t. It’s how I did it myself, for whatever that’s worth.
- vismit2000 2y ago
  Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a genius. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, “How did he do it? He must be a genius!” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40808933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40808933

manvillej 2y ago

you go to school for it. Stats, applied mathematics, operations research, industrial engineering. I went for industrial engineering. we learned the math as pure math, then the math as free language problems, then how to identify and collect data to identify their attributes, then simulate and verify those processes, then test for variations in the underlying assumptions of those processes. They never really did teach me to code well in a language that was useful, I had to pick that one up myself.

travisjungroth 2y ago

Other option as someone who didn’t go to school. Learn a bunch of methods. Learn a bunch of problems. Match them up. “A bunch” is actually a small enough number that brute forcing it works fine. If you have 20 methods in your head, you’re far ahead of most people. You don’t even have to have them in your head. There’s an underutilized technology called a “list” where you just write things down one after another. Go down your list of methods. You’ll be able to throw out 90% of them because of something obvious. You could be up to speed on this in a day of clicking though Wikipedia if you have some stats knowledge. Two days of you don’t. It’s how I did it myself, for whatever that’s worth.

vismit2000 2y ago
Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a genius. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, “How did he do it? He must be a genius!” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40808933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40808933