3 ms·

These notes don't particularly seem very important. On the other hand, I always thought it would be interesting to have an art piece that is like "famous mathem

by j2kun 12y ago

These notes don't particularly seem very important. On the other hand, I always thought it would be interesting to have an art piece that is like "famous mathematicians notes at the moment when the inspiration struck."

rodgerd 12y ago
"The documents also included the only known examples of Banbury sheets, a technique devised by the mathematician Alan Turing to accelerate the process of decrypting Nazi messages. No other examples have ever been found." Was the third paragraph too hard to reach?
- dang 12y ago
  > Was the third paragraph too hard to reach? This comment would be much better without that acerbic swipe. Please stay substantive.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  The structure and use of Banbury Sheets appears to have been well known prior to this discovery? TBH I'd say a specific piece of paper someone drew or wrote on isn't important if we know the content of that paper already; but I know many would disagree.
  - Turing_Machine 12y ago
    Well, sure. Original, handwritten documents are almost always considered more valuable/important than nth-generation copies. E=MC^2 is going to be a lot more valuable in Einstein's handwriting than it is in this post. An original, signed Declaration of Independence or Magna Carta is a national treasure, but a printed copy won't be worth more than the cost of printing.
    - xxs 12y ago
      AFAIK Einstein didn't write it actually as E=mc^2 but used square root instead.
      - dalke 12y ago
        http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/E_mc2/www/ http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/E_mc2/www/ says the original, translated from German, was the text "If a body gives off the energy L in the form of radiation, its mass diminishes by L/c²", that is, m = L / c². L was used for energy at that time, instead of E. There is no square root. If you include the momentum term it's E²/c² - p² = m²c², which solving for E gives a square root, leading to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_equation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_equation .

by j2kun 12y ago

rodgerd 12y ago

"The documents also included the only known examples of Banbury sheets, a technique devised by the mathematician Alan Turing to accelerate the process of decrypting Nazi messages. No other examples have ever been found." Was the third paragraph too hard to reach?

dang 12y ago
> Was the third paragraph too hard to reach? This comment would be much better without that acerbic swipe. Please stay substantive.
pbhjpbhj 12y ago
The structure and use of Banbury Sheets appears to have been well known prior to this discovery? TBH I'd say a specific piece of paper someone drew or wrote on isn't important if we know the content of that paper already; but I know many would disagree.
- Turing_Machine 12y ago
  Well, sure. Original, handwritten documents are almost always considered more valuable/important than nth-generation copies. E=MC^2 is going to be a lot more valuable in Einstein's handwriting than it is in this post. An original, signed Declaration of Independence or Magna Carta is a national treasure, but a printed copy won't be worth more than the cost of printing.
  - xxs 12y ago
    AFAIK Einstein didn't write it actually as E=mc^2 but used square root instead.
    - dalke 12y ago
      http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/E_mc2/www/ http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/E_mc2/www/ says the original, translated from German, was the text "If a body gives off the energy L in the form of radiation, its mass diminishes by L/c²", that is, m = L / c². L was used for energy at that time, instead of E. There is no square root. If you include the momentum term it's E²/c² - p² = m²c², which solving for E gives a square root, leading to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_equation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_equation .