MachineMachine /stream - tagged with mathematics http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com Methods for Studying Coincidences http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/05/methods-for-studying-coincidences/ With a large enough sample, any outrageous thing is likely to happen. The point is that truly rare events, say events that occur only once in a million [as the mathematician Littlewood (1953) required for an event to be surprising] are bound to be plentiful in a population of 250 million people. If a coincidence occurs to one person in a million each day, then we expect 250 occurrences a day and close to 100,000 such occurrences a year. Going from a year to a lifetime and from the population of the United States to that of the world (5… ]]> Mon, 21 May 2012 10:44:39 -0700 http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/05/methods-for-studying-coincidences/ Network Science of the Game of Go http://bit.ly/JoYn3H They constructed their networks in a simple way: if one board position can lead to another, they are connected. Using a dataset of about 1,000 professional games and 4,000 amateur games, they began to construct these networks. Of course, the Go board is very large and so you can’t compare entire board layouts. Instead, they decided to make it much more tractable and look at the board composition surrounding a newly placed piece (a move in Go consists of putting a stone on an intersection of the grid lines of the board). In this case, they looked at the pieces… ]]> Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:29:50 -0700 http://bit.ly/JoYn3H Artificial Intelligence Could Be on Brink of Passing Turing Test http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/04/turing-test-revisited/artificial-intelligence-could-be-on-brink-of-passing-turing-test-wired-science-wiredcom Artificial Intelligence could be on brink of passing The Turing Test : http://t.co/oLsEJN33 ]]> Sat, 14 Apr 2012 08:37:53 -0700 http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/04/turing-test-revisited/artificial-intelligence-could-be-on-brink-of-passing-turing-test-wired-science-wiredcom "As you can probably imagine, this took some effort to make." http://www.metafilter.com/114058/As-you-can-probably-imagine-this-took-some-effort-to-make "The calculator itself is just over 250x200x100 blocks. It contains 2 6-digit BCD number selectors, 2 BCD-to-binary decoders, 3 binary-to-BCD decoders, 6 BCD adders and subtractors, a 20 bit (output) multiplier, 10 bit divider, a memory bank and additional circuitry for the graphing function." Yes, someone built a working scientific calculator, in Minecraft. ]]> Wed, 21 Mar 2012 10:44:41 -0700 http://www.metafilter.com/114058/As-you-can-probably-imagine-this-took-some-effort-to-make Minecraft Scientific/Graphing calculator - Sin Cos Tan Log Square root http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgJfVRhotlQ&feature=youtube_gdata ]]> Wed, 21 Mar 2012 09:51:21 -0700 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgJfVRhotlQ&feature=youtube_gdata The Body Counter: A statistician’s guide to mass atrocities http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/27/the_body_counter?page=full/the-body-counter-by-tina-rosenberg-foreign-policy A statistician’s guide to mass atrocities: http://t.co/GdyiVo8T ]]> Thu, 01 Mar 2012 10:59:31 -0700 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/27/the_body_counter?page=full/the-body-counter-by-tina-rosenberg-foreign-policy Why Does Our Universe Have Three Dimensions? http://news.discovery.com/space/why-does-our-universe-have-three-dimensions-120119.html/why-does-our-universe-have-three-dimensions-discovery-news So you know, why the universe has three dimensions http://t.co/ak3XQF8E ]]> Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:35:56 -0700 http://news.discovery.com/space/why-does-our-universe-have-three-dimensions-120119.html/why-does-our-universe-have-three-dimensions-discovery-news Next Step Infinity http://edge.org/conversation/next-step-infinity/next-step-infinity-conversation-edge Next Step Infinity: "Infinity can violate our human intuition, which is based on finite systems..." http://t.co/tJ08Vvqg #x ]]> Mon, 19 Sep 2011 04:21:41 -0700 http://edge.org/conversation/next-step-infinity/next-step-infinity-conversation-edge Brute force or intelligence? The slow rise of computer chess http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/08/force-versus-heuristics-the-contentious-rise-of-computer-chess.ars When you visit the History of Computer Chess exhibit at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, the first machine you see is "The Turk."

In 1770, a Hungarian engineer and diplomat named Wolfgang von Kempelen presented a remarkable invention to the court of Maria Theresa, ruler of Hungary and Austria. It consisted of a mechanical figure dressed in (what Europeans saw as) Oriental garb, presiding over a cabinet upon which a chess board sat. Full of gears ostentatiously placed in a front side drawer, The Turk was cranked up by hand, after which an opponent… ]]> Mon, 08 Aug 2011 08:39:13 -0700 http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/08/force-versus-heuristics-the-contentious-rise-of-computer-chess.ars On Discovering Life http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/on_discovering_life/ There is an aspect of life sciences that has been largely absent: the confrontation of fundamental questions of biology much as particle accelerators grapple with fundamental questions of physics. The roll call of early pioneers and prospectors is notable, but short. Fortunately, increasing numbers of researchers are now re-entering this fertile frontier.

The open secret of this emerging frontier is that we do not have a fundamental definition or understanding of life. Similarly, we do not understand life’s origins, how life emerges from chemistry. We do know that the chemistry of life on Earth, or “Terran” biochemistry… ]]> Wed, 27 Jul 2011 15:05:30 -0700 http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/on_discovering_life/ Oh, Infinite Stream of Data and Light http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/icon/oh-infinite-stream-of-data-and-light/ Visitors enter the dark, gargantuan room and take up postures of reverence in front of a massive screen, which towers 40 feet above them. They take off their shoes at the edge of the white floor—the sort used in dance studios—laid across the room’s stripped wooden floorboards. They sit down in front of the screen with legs crossed, rapt in attention. Some lay flat on their backs. Others press their bodies up against the vertical screen and let the sound and light play over them. Strips of black and white flash across the screen in varying configurations, loosely attuned to… ]]> Thu, 16 Jun 2011 16:22:37 -0700 http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/icon/oh-infinite-stream-of-data-and-light/ The Fundamental Physical Limits of Computation http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-fundamental-physical-limits-of-computation/the-fundamental-physical-limits-of-computation-scientific-american

Old Skool article @sciam : The Fundamental Physical Limits of Computation #information #data

]]> Wed, 01 Jun 2011 11:44:07 -0700 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-fundamental-physical-limits-of-computation Biomathematics: The formula of life http://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2011/04/viruses-essay-pattern Biology used to be about plants, animals and insects, but five great revolutions have changed the way that scientists think about life: the invention of the microscope, the systematic classification of the planet's living creatures, evolution, the discovery of the gene and the structure of DNA. Now, a sixth is on its way - mathematics.

Maths has played a leading role in the physical sciences for centuries, but in the life sciences it was little more than a bit player, a routine tool for analysing data. However, it is moving towards centre stage, providing new understanding of… ]]> Wed, 11 May 2011 03:32:59 -0700 http://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2011/04/viruses-essay-pattern James Gleick’s History of Information http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/books/review/book-review-the-information-by-james-gleick.html Gleick makes his case in a sweeping survey that covers the five millenniums of humanity’s engagement with information, from the invention of writing in Sumer to the elevation of information to a first principle in the sciences over the last half-century or so. It’s a grand narrative if ever there was one, but its key moment can be pinpointed to 1948, when Claude Shannon, a young mathematician with a background in cryptography and telephony, published a paper called “A Mathematical Theory of Communication” in a Bell Labs technical journal. For Shannon, communication was purely a matter of sending a message… ]]> Sun, 20 Mar 2011 05:41:08 -0700 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/books/review/book-review-the-information-by-james-gleick.html Why the Basis of the Universe Isn’t Matter or Energy—It’s Data http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/mf_gleick_qa/all/1 Information flows everywhere, through wires and genes, through brain cells and quarks. But while it may appear ubiquitous to us now, until recently we had no awareness of what information was or how it worked. In his new book, The Information, science writer James Gleick documents the rising role of information in our lives and the way new technologies continue to increase its velocity, volume, and importance. Gleick—whose first book, Chaos, was a National Book Award finalist and whose biographies of Richard Feynman and Isaac Newton were both short-listed for the Pulitzer—spent seven years compiling his epic account. Wired spoke… ]]> Sun, 06 Mar 2011 04:43:51 -0700 http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/mf_gleick_qa/all/1 Stephen Hawking says there's no theory of everything http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2010/09/stephen-hawking-says-theres-no-theory-of-everything.html Three decades ago, Stephen Hawking famously declared that a "theory of everything" was on the horizon, with a 50 per cent chance of its completion by 2000. Now it is 2010, and Hawking has given up. But it is not his fault, he says: there may not be a final theory to discover after all. No matter; he can explain the riddles of existence without it.

The Grand Design, written with Leonard Mlodinow, is Hawking's first popular book in almost a decade. It duly covers the growth of modern physics (quantum mechanics, general relativity, modern cosmology) sprinkled… ]]> Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:41:00 -0700 http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2010/09/stephen-hawking-says-theres-no-theory-of-everything.html Infinite Life http://www.tnr.com/article/76715/infinite-life?passthru=MDBkMjEwNTgzZjNhNGZmYjBhNzEzZTdiZmVlZDk0Nzg A starry firmament, or sand cascading through one’s open fingers, or weeds springing up time after time: the first conception of infinity, of the uncountable and the unending, is not recorded, but it must have been stimulated by experiences such as these. It may have merged in the mind of an ancient progenitor with thoughts of a God, a possessor of unlimited might, an infinite being itself. But whether or not the idea of God was born with the first thoughts of what cannot be counted, this wonderful book by an American historian of science and a French mathematician teaches… ]]> Thu, 05 Aug 2010 03:18:00 -0700 http://www.tnr.com/article/76715/infinite-life?passthru=MDBkMjEwNTgzZjNhNGZmYjBhNzEzZTdiZmVlZDk0Nzg Plato's stave: academic cracks philosopher's musical code http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/29/plato-mathematical-musical-code It may sound like the plot of a Dan Brown novel, but an academic at the University of Manchester claims to have cracked a mathematical and musical code in the works of Plato.

Jay Kennedy, a historian and philosopher of science, described his findings as "like opening a tomb and discovering new works by Plato."

Plato is revealed to be a Pythagorean who understood the basic structure of the universe to be mathematical, anticipating the scientific revolution of Galileo and Newton by 2,000 years.

Kennedy's breakthrough, published in the journal Apeiron… ]]> Tue, 20 Jul 2010 02:45:00 -0700 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/29/plato-mathematical-musical-code Science historian cracks the 'Plato code' http://www.physorg.com/news196943667.html A science historian at The University of Manchester has cracked "The Plato Code" - the long disputed secret messages hidden in the great philosopher's writings.

Plato was the Einstein of Greece's Golden Age and his work founded Western culture and science. Dr Jay Kennedy's findings are set to revolutionise the history of the origins of Western thought.

Dr Kennedy, whose findings are published in the leading US journal Apeiron, reveals that Plato used a regular pattern of symbols, inherited from the ancient followers of Pythagoras, to give his books a musical structure. A century… ]]> Thu, 01 Jul 2010 06:44:00 -0700 http://www.physorg.com/news196943667.html Think Globally http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/think-globally/ The most familiar ideas of geometry were inspired by an ancient vision — a vision of the world as flat. From parallel lines that never meet, to the Pythagorean theorem discussed in last week’s column, these are eternal truths about an imaginary place, the two-dimensional landscape of plane geometry.

Conceived in India, China, Egypt and Babylonia more than 2,500 years ago, and codified and refined by Euclid and the Greeks, this flat-earth geometry is the main one (and often the only one) being taught in high schools today. But things have changed in the past few millennia.]]> Fri, 26 Mar 2010 05:54:00 -0700 http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/think-globally/