just watched this very amusing documentary, which after showing math effectiveness and ineffectiveness to describe, model, predict, our reality, researching the question whether math is invented or discovered.
my, not so subtle, thoughts on this:
1. who cares
2. unanswerable
3. how usable would the answer be?
4. probably it is both
Just watched this documentary about this remarkable mathematician, who lived between 1913 and 1996. Remarkable for the number of publications, remarkable for the number off people he published with and remarkable for traveling with a half full suite case and a plastic bag around the world, visiting mathematicians never visiting home.
In the Netherlands he worked together with J.F. Koksma, J.H. van Lint, N.G. de Bruijn, R. Tijdeman and J.W.M. de Turk.
Even for secondary school too simple and uninspiring. My advice is to not buy it and don’t read it.
The first few hundred pages you are enthusiastic what is all possible with Wolfram products, during these pages you must have met chapters that are of no interest to you and you got the feeling it scratches surfaces, but nowhere breaks through. Then you get mixed feeling between ‘fun, this is possible’ and ‘I want to know more, and irritation because of the many trivial exercises’ and at the end you have the feeling that an overview could have done much more efficient.
And by the way the subtitle ‘Programming with the language’ is a farce, for sure if you know that there is only one chapter on programming, 22 pages out of 552 and that # &, @, /@ are skipped.
Three books on Mathematica, and Wolfram Language to go … hope there is better out there!?
If you have advice please leave a note!
Of course while learning math I have to do a lot of exercises using brain, pen and paper. When doodling and maybe also sometimes while learning 😉 I want some of the work done by a computer, therefore I tried several programs.
Some of the programs I tried before I decided:
See Wikipedia for a list of more open-source software for mathematics.
I’m quite a fan of open source, but the above tried options could not live up the experience I had with WolframAlpha Pro. From there I had look at Matlab and Mathematica, Wolfram|One. What I read is that the focus of Matlab is more on the numeric aspect and that of Mathematica more on the symbol side. That and because I already had some experience with WolframAlpha Pro I have chosen for Wolfram|One, pricey but very powerful and intuitive, at least for the simple things I have done up until now. What I read is that Wolfram has an enormous amount of possibilities and therefore a steep learning curve … If you want to know more about Wolfram One you can read it here.
Funny detail is that Mathematica is a program initially written by Stephen Wolfram based on a program called Schoonschip (Dutch for clean sweep) by Martinus Veltman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, both had an itch that computer support needed a step ahead.
Also nice is that there is a Wolfram Language plugin for my favourite development IDE from Jetbrains, see here.
Now let’s start the steep learning curve into Wolfram Language.
Note taking with pen and paper, with a stylus on a tablet, using keyboard and note taking app on a tablet … what did I do and where am I going for now.
No requirements study, just a couple of wishes:
What did I try so far:
While playing with iaWriter when hitting on the printing problems, seen with also other Markdown editors I started to have enough of Markdown and reverting to handwriting on either paper of tablet. The reason for producing pdf’s is that Markdown doesn’t know a fixed standard, so what you produce in one editor might or more probably will look completely different in another editor, so sharing notes in Markdown is a no go.
My choice, for now:
snip.mathpix.com from the makers of Mathpix. When collaborating with other mathy’s I think they either already use Mathpix tools or easily switch to start using them, you can use them for free or intensively using them is possible for a very reasonably price.
To do:
If I would change my mind, my enthusiasm for the Snip editor I’ll come back here and share my further experience with it.
Joy from all angles. With titbits and tidbits, which you might or might not have known, like for example we still didn’t proof whether or not there are slightly excessive numbers. Useful for understanding numbers, useless according to dandy Hardy, touching the why off mathematics.
no man’s land is strewn with numbers
kr=, a couple of seconds ago (or I’m unaware of citing somebody; if so, please enlighten me)
Another angle is the history of Fermat’s last theorem from the ancient times to its proof, growing the construction of the proof. And the growing pains of proofing.
It also shows the sometimes nearly invisible line between hero and zero, where the prover thinks zero and the writer rightly, and little seen, screams in silence how great Wiles’ contribution would have been even if he hadn’t been able to take the last step in the proof.
Thank you Simon Singh for this great book.
What it is about, Wikipedia, with a bit of kris, says it clearly enough: O’Neil, a mathematician or how she calls herself math babe (https://mathbabe.org), analyses how the use of big data and algorithms in a variety of fields, including insurance, advertising, education, and policing, can lead to decisions that harm the poor, reinforce racism, and amplify inequality.
My 2 cents: it is a must must read for people working in the fields of big data, algorithms, machine learning and AI, to learn to take into account the social impact of the systems they are building. Or ambiguously, take care they deliver good systems.
Math students should read it before graduation.
This really makes my stomach turn.
You can’t really trust news, but this comes in from several sources and this source seams trustworthy to me https://matholymp.com.ua/en/2022/03/08/yulya-zdanovska-2/
