cevi

13 ms·

91.
by cevi 5y ago
The nice thing about math is that once you reach a certain level, self-assessment becomes extremely reliable. From that point on you can learn math on your own without worry! The key is to always have some concrete procedure available to ch
92.
by cevi 5y ago
While computer scientists might expect slightly faster factoring algorithms to exist than the ones we know of - perhaps exp((# bits)^0.25) is plausible - I think the majority of computer scientists, including Aaronson, would be completely s
93.
by cevi 5y ago
This assumption is correct - the quanta article left out quite a bit of detail about how forcing actually works, while trying to give some hint of the philosophy behind it. As it turns out, you can still apply the forcing technique even if
94.
by cevi 5y ago
Mathematicians do consider "just pick an arbitrary element" sufficient. This is baked into the system of "first order logic" - the standard use of existential quantifiers in logic allows for proofs that make any finite n
95.
by cevi 5y ago
As far as I can tell, there is no such insight here - in the middle of page 13 they admit that in their solution, the weak energy condition is violated, and even that: "No amount of modification to the configuration could get rid of t
96.
by cevi 5y ago
This should be obvious, but just in case: do not store your bitcoin at this address.
97.
by cevi 5y ago
My favorite would have to be (Modular) SNUSP[1]. The combination of two-dimensional control flow with one-character recursion is completely irresistible to me. If it just had support for pointers, my life would be complete. [1] https:&#x2F
98.
by cevi 5y ago
"The achievement of the Polish-Chinese-Canadian team of researchers is of fundamental importance, but it is so profound that it may translate into new quantum technologies." Pure hyperbole. This result is philosophically interesti
99.
by cevi 5y ago
I expected to see just one or two, but this really does have quite a few good ones!
100.
by cevi 6y ago
One of my favorite little-known algorithmic facts is that a sparse system of n linear equations in n unknowns over a finite field can be solved in time O(mn) if the corresponding matrix has m nonzero entries[1]. I'm surprised at how ha
101.
by cevi 6y ago
Reminds me very strongly of the opening lines of https://qntm.org/destroy
102.
by cevi 6y ago
The best reference for learning quantum computing that I know is Watrous's notes: https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~watrous/LectureNotes/CPSC519.Winter...
103.
by cevi 6y ago
I am far from being an expert on descriptive complexity, and have only skimmed the paper. One spot jumped out at me as a potential error: on page 21, the sentence "Next we exploit that a choice in state S will be insignificant iff all
104.
by cevi 7y ago
This approach has been explored. It has only been helpful for showing that certain types of (short-ish) cycles can't occur [1]. Showing that the sequence can't get larger and larger forever (without repeating) with this approach h
105.
by cevi 7y ago
I took the class these notes were based on at Caltech with Peter Schröder - it was one of the most interesting courses I ever took. Glad to see these notes show up on HN.
106.
by cevi 8y ago
Here's a reading recommendation list I put together over the years: http://math.mit.edu/~notzeb/rec.html Two caveats: first, it is obviously biased to the sort of math I find enjoyable, and second, many of the sug
107.
by cevi 8y ago
The obvious conspiracy theory: instead of arresting him, the chinese government quietly offered him a job.
108.
by cevi 9y ago
The main problem I see with this is that it seems to implicitly assume the Extended Church-Turing Thesis, which is widely suspected to be false (assuming that quantum computers can be built, and that BQP is not equal to BPP). How would a su
109.
by cevi 9y ago
LeVeque's book "Fundamentals of Number Theory" is decent - it covers the basics (sometimes goes a bit beyond the basics), does some elementary ring theory, has exercises, and has a little bit of historical trivia. Andrews has
110.
by cevi 9y ago
The main step seems to be Lemma 2. The fact that the reductions are logspace is never actually used in the argument - so if this proof worked, it would also apply to arbitrary reductions, and the same argument would show that NP is not cont
111.
by cevi 9y ago
I always wondered what the bizarre hype about the d.school at Stanford was about.
112.
by cevi 9y ago
Find better quantum error correcting codes, and quantum computers will show up that much faster.
113.
by cevi 9y ago
Why not donate them to a library?
114.
by cevi 9y ago
Personally, I'm looking forward to the day when Automated Theorem Provers can compete with top high school students on math competitions. My guess is that the way to go is to combine resolution theorem proving with intuitive pattern ma
115.
by cevi 9y ago
More nominations: Hashlife (golly) SAT-solvers (minisat, glucose, lingeling, ...) Convex optimization (CVXOPT, ...)
116.
by cevi 10y ago
Aside from the silly claim that log(0) = 1, this has a fundamental flaw: if the attacker knows a sufficiently long chunk of the plaintext (standard headers, for instance), then it's nearly trivial to deduce the key (using gaussian elim
117.
by cevi 10y ago
If you're going to open source it, you may as well put it in a big repository such as http://www.personalgenomes.org/ Pros: mad scientists can make use of your genome. Cons: your health insurance provider might make us
118.
by cevi 10y ago
Maybe this explains the time I found a $20 bill in a rather obscure library book.