## Archive for the ‘mathematics’ Category

### Too many kittens

December 14, 2011

Too many cat posts at the blogs and twitters of Greta Christina and Jen McCreight.

This came out.

Dog help us all.

* * *

KITTEN CUTENESS FOR THE NON-MATHEMATICIAN

Eustace J. Wobbles
Professor of Faunamathematics
Agric. Univ. Hoho, Sussex

A kitten cuteness measure $C$ should have the following three properties:

(1) $C(0) = 0$

(2) $C(x) < U$ for all numbers of kittens $x$, where $U$ is the baby unicorn crocodile cuteness constant.

(3) $C(x)$ is continuous in the piecewise fractional kitten sense for all $x > 0$.

Notes:

1. Gauss’s hypothesis that $\lim_{x\to\infty} C(x) = U$ was disproved by Wiles in 1999. The best current result is that $\sup_x C(x)$ is at least $\pi/3$ below U for all natural measures $C(x)$, i.e. measures that have (1)–(3). See Olcat for the contradiction that follows if the distance is less, “the Cyriak Paradox”.
2. The behavior of $C$ when $x < 0$ is of no importance. For an exhaustive survey of research into this case, see the celebrated book by Vem Varför (Varför 1993) and the more accessible Varför 2001.

We now introduce a common cuteness measure; for full derivation and alternatives, see Olcat and Hezbuugaa.

Let $x$ be the number of kittens. Then Erdös’s experienced cuteness function $C$ is

$C(x) = 10x - \frac{1}{2}x^2$.

Clearly $C(0) = 0$, and since $C$ is continuous, it is continuous in the piecewise fractional kitten sense. Condition (2) follows for the Wieso-Holzkopf Lemma.

Observations on the aptness of this measure for measuring real world kitten number behavior follow.

Observations.

The cutest number of kittens is 10, after which cuteness decreases. After 20 kittens $C$ is negative; experimentation has shown this is the number at which the Kitten Hivemind activates, and all cuteness disappears.

At roughly 144.5 kittens the cuteness goes below minus nine thousand, with predictable and catastrophic consequences. (See Narm.)

It is at the present unknown what would happen if over 145 kittens were present at once; the Gell-Mann-Feynman PET model seems to indicate the strong nuclear force would prevent this configuration and those above it.

For a contrary view, see Hezbuugaa’s proposals for “the Kittycube” (1984) and “the Kittycube Propulsion System” (1989).

Research into maximal kitten formations has been severely limited by the Kitten Ground Test Ban of 1992; at the present, Russia and China are still conducting secret kitten tests in space, and CERN in co-operation with the European Union and the Hivemind is planning a strictly volunteer-based non-weaponized high Earth orbit testing program as a successor to the LHC. (For a look into the possible environmental impact, see Appendix D in Miau’s Raining What? Fertilizer At The Crossroads.)

The ease of weaponizing over-20 kitten configurations (the so-called “Cat Lady Weapon” or “the K-bomb”) has been greatly exaggerated in popular depictions. It is not enough to simply throw thirty kittens at someone and duck! Likewise, compacting a sub-100 number of kittens does not cause a 144.5 meltdown, but just an awful mess. Speaking of awful messes, the Alan Smithee film “Hellcats at the Singularity!” makes both of these blunders, the first in the presidential assassination scene and the second in the New York destruction scene. The Hivemind does not appromeow.

See Olcat and Hezbuugaa’s book for human- and time-dependant kitten functions, and Munroe for the distance dependant function.

*

REFERENCES

Olcat, L. and Hezbuugaa, C., Advanced Animal Theory, Springer Verlag, 2009.

Olcat, L., The Unicorn Crocodile Constant Is Strictly Separated Away From Kittens, Comm. Soc. Fel. Amer., 7 (1992), no. 3, 133–176

Grausam, J., Fractional Kittens: A Very Graphic Approach, Wilford Telmarine Farrar, 1962.

Munroe, R., Cat Proximity, xkcd, 231, no. 1, 1–1

Narm, M., An Oral History of the Kitten Apocalypse of Syracuse, 1909: A Retrospective In Analysis, New Syracuse University Press, 1984

Varför, V., Negativa och icke-real complex kattdjur: en helveten spekulativ strategi, Kungl. Vitterhetsakademien, 1993

Varför, V., Subzero Farm Animals: An Introduction, Springer Verlag, 2001

Feris, M. O., How Much Is Too Much? Too Many Perspectives on Humor/Humour in the Mathematical Sciences, Tripleday, 1973

Feris, M. O., I Spell It Hummor: Translating Humor Across Subculture Boundaries, Quadrupleday, 1984

December 5, 2011

There’s something magical in that when you go to your advisor to tell you can’t do X except with Y; and he says “well, I think this is not an obvious disaster; run with X-plus-Y and see what happens.”

There are a lot of other advisor moments, too: all the moments when it becomes apparent that you have a penlight and he has a giant-ass halogen disco ball. All the moments when it is obvious that you are still a learner, and he is the master. (And maybe, one day, you will be the doctor? And in your case, it could be a “she” just as well as a “he”.) Your advisor is kind of like a third parent; it’s not trivial that one instance of tracking these relationships is called the Mathematics Genealogy Project.

There’s the dreadful moment when he offhandedly, and possibly jocularly, drops a word that after the year of head-walling you’ve done, you probably know and understand more about that particular theorem than anyone else alive. There’s the moment when you see you’re really at the edge of knowledge, and he’s about to throw you out so you can see what lies beyond.

There’s the moment he pulls a trick out of thin air, and fixes the one detail you had no idea how to deal with. Probably it’s a trick you should have known; but “trivial” is not a constant but highly time-dependant.

There’s the moment you see he hasn’t understood something, and it feels so good to step in to explain. (Because maybe you’re the bigger expert now, as regards this tiny subject, and this moment in time? Or maybe your handwriting just is really awful?)

There’s the moment you say “And next we—” and then you see the mistake, the horrible gap you totally forgot, and there’s that terrible three-second delay before he sees it. It’s not that he would be upset or angry, but that you want to be bright at him. You’re the penlight and he the halogen, but you want to show him you’ve changed out some of your dimbulbs. He’s radiant, and in his company you want to be the same, as good and a thousand times more.

There’s the moment you spend a double lungful explaining your approach, and he breathes out the two-word name for it — and if you’re lucky it’s “basically Hölder’s?” and not “Weird nonsense!” And then there is the thing when you’re explaining what you have done and in the middle of it you see what you’ve done is wrong and you have to offhandedly admit it and dance madly backwards trying to fix it as you talk and walk and write, chalkdust flying and the arrows becoming twistier, the letters sketchier, because you have all the details still in your head and you’ll show him how it goes… because for that moment you’re still the circus director, he the audience, and the proof may still be there, if you just reach and twist a bit.

There’s the feeling of being much smarter than you are, when he explains things to you, suggests and goads and outlines; and there’s the feeling of staring at an empty computer screen later and thinking, “It seemed so easy when he was talking about it. If only I’d taken more notes. Now was I supposed to see if this thing was bounded, or what?” When he is there, all is anchored by his understanding; when you are alone, it’s not only dark; the solid ground melts away, too. And then you run back and whine; back to the light, and then away carrying a little bit of it with you.

And though every single day you feel as dumb as the previous day, you’re pretty sure you’re feeling equally dumb about ever smarter things.

I guess what I’m trying to say is I don’t need no drugs: I meet my advisor at least once a week, and that’s a good enough altered state all by itself.

### Three views into mathematics

November 29, 2011

What better use for a lunch break than a bottle of cola and a blog post? Three books off the showing-off-how-mathematical-I-am bookshelf at my elbow. One semi-random sentence from each.

I

In 1924, reviewing reports on algebraic numbers issued by the National Research Council, he noted with pleasure the comparatively great amount of space that the authors had devoted to cyclotomy, a fact that he saw as an encouragement to beginners and proof that the “lusty” old subject was still very much alive.

(Constance Reid, The Search for E.T. Bell, also known as John Taine, Mathematical Association of America, 1993, p. 145)

An obscure book about a mathematician, a historian, a popularizer of mathematics (author of the justly famous and famously not always exact Men of Mathematics), a poet, and a science fiction writer, that was not always all that honest with his own personal history.

II

Pathological monsters! cried the terrified mathematician
Every one of them is a splinter in my eye
I hate the Peano Space and the Koch Curve
I fear the Cantor Ternary Set
And the Sierpinski Gasket makes me want to cry

(Sarah Glaz and JoAnne Growney, Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics, A K Peters, 2008, p. 141; this bit is a Jonathan Coulton song lyric)

I guess this is what snotty types call “an eclectic collection”. I liked about half of the poems; the other half weren’t mathematical enough.

III

“No reason was ever given,” recalled Henriksen, “but his lawyer was permitted to examine a portion of the Erdös file and found recorded the facts that he corresponded with a Chinese number theorist named Hua who had left his position at the University of Illinois to return to Red China in 1949 (a typical Erdös letter would have begun: Dear Hua, let p be an odd prime…) and that he had blundered onto a radar installation in Long Island … while discussing mathematics with two other noncitizens.” The authorities apparently feared that the letters to Hua, filled with impenetrable mathematical symbols, might be coded messages.

(Paul Hoffman, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdös and the Search for Mathematical Truth, Hyperion, 1998, p. 128)

One of two (!) Erdös biographies I have; the other is by My Brain Is Open by Bruce Schechter. Erdös (and I suppose that is not o-umlaut but some Hungarian doodle) was a real-life stereotypical mathematician. As can be glimpsed from the quote above.

### Rock, paper, scissors, a mathematician ruining it

November 16, 2011

I

The obvious variation is to add more signs into the game: say “rock-paper-reviewer-editor-scissors”. It in inobvious, though, whether rock beats reviewer or the other way round. (Some of those reviewers are tough.)

One way is to draw a pentagram in a single line (making each segment an arrow pointing the way you draw it) and then to draw a circle round it (marking the direction you draw). Then you can treat the points of the pentagram as the five signs, with each point originating two arrows indicating two other points, and being indicated by two of the others; which gives two signs that submit, and two that conquer.

This addition alone, though, doesn’t make the game more interesting, just more complicated.

One could say winning or losing by the circle is different from winning or losing by the pentagram: but how? (Through a pentagram loss, you forfeit your very soul?)

Ib

As for the simpler obvious variation: Rock-paper-plasticknife-scissors, the game with four sign(al)s/gestures, is a bit iffy. You tie with the same; you lose to one, win against one… but what about the fourth? If it is a tie, one half of games end in a tie. It can’t be a win or a loss, because that would make some signs better than others. If rock wins against against plasticknife, then plasticknife loses to both rock and scissors, wins against paper and ties against itself — it would always be better to play rock (WWLT) than to play plasticknife (WLLT).

Any odd number of gestures can be arranged to be equally good; no even number above two can be without increasing the number of ties.

Then again, with more gestures this just isn’t interesting. Who cares if Horned Goat loses to Hanged Man or Lone Dalek, if it’s the same loss either way?

Ic

Rock-paper-scissors doesn’t have the same kind of a hierarchical arrangement as playing cards do — there you don’t get to choose your cards, so you can have cards that are better than others, most of the time. In rock-paper-scissors, you need to have options that are somehow equal (by not knowing the other player’s choice, if in no other way), because why would you choose a sign that was less likely to win?

Consider the card game known as “Red”. Both players draw a card from a deck, face down. Both then reveal their card. A red always beats a black; below that, a bigger card always wins. Not a particularly interesting game, but perfect for high school students really tapped-out after an unwelcome lesson. If you could call the card you wanted in Red, you’d be screaming “Ace of Hearts!” all the time — and having a tie with your opponent, who would be shouting the same. (Or “Diamond Ace!” — it would be a pointless, melodramatic game either way.)

This illustrates that either your choices can’t matter, or you must have no choice at all… which is a depressing prospect, but rock-paper-scissors is not much of an intellectual game anyway, as far as its mechanics go. The psychology can of course be very interesting, especially when you keep playing it. (“Is she going for scissors again? Third time in a row? But what if she’s counting on me pulling rock, and intends to play paper? Then I should play scissors— unless—”, et cetera. Put two psychologists to work playing each other, and they’ll probably stare at each other for five minutes, and then one admits defeat.)

It would be ideal to make a game with mechanics just complex enough to generate interesting psychology. Rock-paper-scissors isn’t quite complex enough. (Then again, it’s better than tic-tac-toe, a game where any player smarter than your average calculator can always tie, and two such players will always tie.)

II

The obvious biological variation would be to play the game with both hands at the same time. But this too makes the game different — in this case quicker (two at the same time!) — but not more interesting.

Then again, this gives more scoring conditions: a double win, a small win (win one, tie one), a fighting tie (win one, lose one) and a full tie (tie both). (The first two are, from the other end, a double lose and a small lose.)

By crunching numbers, the likelihood these outcomes is, assuming the players are dumb automatons:

11% Double win (W/W)
22% Small win (W/T)

22% Fighting tie (W/L)
11% Full tie (T/T)

22% Small lose (L/T)
11% Double lose (L/L)

— one percent is lost in the rounding. (Use 1/9 and 2/9 if you want to be exact.) If you take the first two as “wins”, the middle as “ties” and the last two as “loses”, then the odds are the same as in a normal one-handed game of rock-paper-scissors; there’s just a bit more additional detail within each category. To make a sensible variant of the game, this added sensitivity should be utilized somehow. (Note the two ties aren’t different in any intuitive way; both players get the same result in each. Some new rule could distinguish them for some other new aspect of the game.)

Mind you, this could be a decision tool if you needed two exit conditions —

Double win : We’ll do what I want, all the way

Small win: We’ll do what I want, for the most part

Fighting tie: Fine, let’s do nothing; I’ll go home, this isn’t working!

Full tie: Let’s try to split everything evenly, okay?

— but I’m not sure anyone needs help for making decisions like that.

The mechanic is there; the game just needs an addition that uses it.

III

The third variation, a sort of obnoxious meta thing, would be to have three players, each with two hands, each playing a one-handed game with each of the other two at the same time.

Call the players A, B and C. Three games resolve at the same time, each with three possible results (win/lose, lose/win, tie); this gives twenty-seven different total outcomes. Those form four categories, the way I choose to group them.

I’ll write “A>B” for “A wins over B”, “A<B” for “A loses to B” and “A=B” for “A and B tie”.

1) A<B<C<A : a roundabout tie. A>B>C>A is the same thing: each player has one win, one loss, and there’s no assigning rank to them.

2) A=B=C, every game ties; everyone flashes the same sign. A great tie! Also, the appearance of a gang meet-up.

3) A>B(sthng)C<A — Strong ranking; One player wins both of his/her games: victory! (I’ll call it that to distinguish it from “wins”, which are the results of individual games.) The third game, between the two losers, either gives second and third places, or a divided second if they tie:

3a) Full rank: A>B>C<A. Player A takes first place (wins over B and C), Player B the second (wins over C, loses to A), Player C the third (loses to A and B). Alternately, A>B<C<A. (It’s probably sensible to say A>B>C=A and A<B<C=A belong here as well; one can’t argue for any different order than the obvious one.)

3b) Weaker rank: A>B=C<A. Player A is the winner; the other two both lose.

Note that there can’t be a case where two players win both their games: the game between them can have at most one winner. This three-player game produces either one victor (above) or less (below).

4) A>B(sthng)C=A — Weak ranking; No player can be ranked as the best of the three. (A>B>C=A is already included in 3a.)

4a) Weaker rank: A>B<C=A. There’s no victor, just two winners; but B sure loses.

4b) Weakest rank: A>B=C=A. There are two ties and one win-lose; thus, a winner, a loser, and one the game didn’t decide about. (Also, A<B=C=A.)

I think one has to think that a tie means “no decision”, because one can’t really interpret a tie as “are equal” because of situations like A>B=C>A. If B and C are equal, why is one strictly better than A and one strictly worse? Unless you interpret that as collapsing > into $\geq$ into =; how you interpret the mechanics makes the game.

As for the improved version of rock-paper-scissors, I have no idea. I’m just throwing up mechanics.

### Ruining the sequence game

November 10, 2011

This is an old puzzle-type question: “I give you three numbers, a, b, c. What is next?”

This is nice brain exercise, but as a mathematician I feel duty bound to tell you you can break this game in about five seconds, if you so wish. (Well, five seconds and a bit of calculation time.)

Let $f$ be a function so that $f(n)$ gives the $n$:th number in the sequence; in the above example,

$f(1) = a$,

$f(2) = b$

and

$f(3) = c$.

Suppose you want the next number to be $d$. That’s one more condition for $f$,

$f(4) = d$.

The trick now is that these are four fixed points for a function; and it is trivial to find any number of functions that give those four values, and thus are “the rule that gives the sequence”.

That is to say:

A+ Math Student: “The sequence starts 1, 2, 3. What’s the next one?”

Mathematician: “The next one is 666.”

A+MS: “What? Don’t be silly, the next one is 4!”

M: “Huh? What perverse logic is that? Your sequence consists obviously of the integer values of the function $f(x) = \frac{331}{3}x^3 -662x^2 + \frac{3644}{3}x - 662$. You’re just changing the answer because I got it right.”

Best of all, the trick can be used to go from any given number of sequence points into any further number of points you may want to insist on. It’s a bit prohibitively bothersome to calculate — but it is always possible.

* * *

Oh well, the calculation. Oi, the calculation. If you have four points, a third-degree (four-minus-one-th degree) polynomial is probably the easiest guess, that is, a function $f$,

$f(x) = Ax^3 + Bx^2 + Cx + D$

for some constants A, B, C and D, so that it holds that

$A + B + C + D = a$

$8A + 4B + 2C + D = b$

$27A + 9B + 3C + D = c$

$64A + 16B + 4C + D = d$.

$\displaystyle A = -\frac{1}{6}\,a+\frac{1}{2}\,b-\frac{1}{2}\,c+\frac{1}{6}\,d$

$\displaystyle B = \frac{3}{2}\,a-4b+\frac{7}{2}\,c-d$

$\displaystyle C = -\frac{13}{3}\,a+\frac{19}{2}\,b-7c+\frac{11}{6}\,d$

$\displaystyle D = 4a-6b+4c-d$.

For $a=1, b=2, c=3, d=666$, that gives

$\displaystyle f(x) = \frac{331}{3}\,x^3 -662x^2 + \frac{3644}{3}\,x - 662$;

clearly and obviously the rule asked for.

That’s still a lot of numbers, but a person with quick wits (not me!) could easily memorize that, and answer any what-is-the-fourth question with a horribly misguided rules-lawyering technically correct answer.

And technically correct is for a mathematician the only kind of correct that matters.

* * *

It will be a tad easier to forget the fourth number, and just slap down the second-degree polynomial that fits the given three —

$f(x) = Ax^2 + Bx + C$

for

$\displaystyle A + B + C = a$

$\displaystyle 4A + 2B + C = b$

$\displaystyle 9A + 3B + C = c$

or

$\displaystyle A = \frac{1}{2}\,a-b+\frac{1}{2}\,c$

$\displaystyle B = -\frac{5}{2}\,a+4b-\frac{3}{2}\,c$

$\displaystyle C = 3a-3b+c$

— and proclaim: “Here’s your bloody rule; as for the fourth number calculate it yourself! I don’t have time for your silly games! Ha ha ha!”

Alternatively, proclaim: “Here you go. Trolled by maths.”

(As for that $f$ giving the intended fourth point, that’s infinitesimally unlikely. Most clever sequences aren’t second-degree polynomials.)

* * *

Of course if one doesn’t feel bound to finding an explicit numerical rule, the possibilities are endless.

Less than 666 reasons the next number is 666

• The rule is my rule. The next number is 666.
• No, you’re doing it wrong. Trust me, I’ve heard this one before; the next one is 666.
• No, it’s the medals that are awarded in Tour de France: gold, silver, bronze and hamstrung. One, two, three, six-six-six.
• Obviously it is integers ordered according to the frequency of their appearances in Western literature. Those wacky Christian mystics, right? All about 666!
• “The Beast comes, all of a sudden! One! Two! Three! Six hundred and sixty six, the Number of the Beast! In medias res, Lupus Magnus Innominandum, Lucifer Deovore Daalek Satanas!” is the rule.
• What do you mean, the next one can’t be 666? What happened to respecting the other guy’s religion? Huh?
• Four? I’m so quoting that on Facebook. (This does not actually produce a sense of conviction in the other party, but rather a sense of crippling self-doubt with pretty much the same results.)
• Four? I never pegged you as a racist before.
• What do you need a rule like that for? It’s as obvious as elementary, high, university and Satan on horseback!
• “Wait, no.” (Repeat after each attempt to disagree. Each time increase the time between “wait” and “no”.)
• No no, I got this. This is much more elegant than yours. See? “One, two, three, six hundred and sixty six, blood, blood, blood, blood, blood—” (repeat with slowly increasing volume until you win)
• Is too! Look, I can point you at one guy on the Internet that agrees with me and not you—

### Horrible mathematicians

November 7, 2011

Was talking to a friend, a mathematical like me, a frequent TA like me, and through subjects that you don’t want to know, it came to this:

“…which would be quite a web address to point the students at to get their copies of correct answers from! Ha ha ha!”

“Ha! Ha! Ha! I think we could think up something worse, though.”

After which, there was more laughter.

Explanation: Mathematical analysis is (a) a pretty good fraction of a math M.Sc., and (b) really abbreviated like that, pretty often.

The jokes for complex analysis and numerical analysis practically write themselves.

Eventually, one could slip the address into the contact details of an academic paper. Name, affiliation, snail mail, e-mail, booyah!

And a person ought to have a card — but because affiliations can fluctuate, it would just have

(phone number)

“Nice to meet you! Here’s my card; looking forward to working with you! Double-hand finger point, wink, leer!”

Though if the site had more than demonstration answers, maybe it should be http://www.analexplorations.com? Or http://www.realanalproblems.com, “Problems in Real Analysis”?

Or, if one had self-confidence and delusions of grandeur, http://www.analchampion.com?

And then there’s the old one, the real actual one I’ve seen on a blackboard for reals, of abbreviation in assuming $f$ is an analytic function:

“but ass. $f$ anal.”

### Almost but not quite reducible to tweet size

July 3, 2011

There’s a Finnish beer called Lapin Kulta, or “The Gold of Lapland”. Lapland being, as you know, that northernmost half of Finland where the forests end and nothing but rolling cold hills and some reindeer remain, and even Finns feel this subarctic thing is being taken too far.

I hear there’s a Swedish beer called “The Gold of Norrland”, Norrland being the northernmost half of Sweden where rolling cold hills yada yada.

Finally, there is a Russian beer called “The Gold of Siberia”, and, well, you get the picture.

Clearly here’s a pattern, but I’m not seeing the reason for it.

* * *

I’m almost tempted to take a severe black-and-white photograph of the back of my head, and to clip that to a passport application. (Possibly with “A BAD HAIR DAY” scrawled on the back.) I just fear the police sergeant processing is inattentive or humoristic, and then I won’t travel without turning my shirt front to back.

* * *

Hypothesis: Passport photos (at least Finnish ones) all make one look like a druggie thuggee of some description. Maybe this is an intentional security feature — if the photo looks good, it’s a fake passport.

* * *

Seems to me the worst thing that can happen to a city should be being the setting of a wildly successful police drama procedural series. All those show is an unending parade of drug sellers, racists, wife beaters, child abusers, thrill killers and the like, each more wretched and retch-worthy than the previous, and most with a subtext of this is a system that has failed.

That should be bad PR for a place — but no, apparently isn’t.

Also, if TV is to be believed, all cops have ulcers and divorces, and spend their free time brooding. Apparently this is not a major recruiting hurdle; myself I’m just happy there’s no TV show about mathematicians.

* * *

Scrap the previous; I’m bitterly angry there’s no TV show about mathematicians or other academicians (all below goes for your favorite specialty as well), but so many about policemen and doctors and other professionals of ick. Real police work is tedious and arcane; real medical work likewise, or so I assume; why won’t someone put some charm on the ur-pursuit of patterns?

“Tonight, on The Slaves of the Lemma — the Conjecture of Doom! Professor Doomsnarl and her team rely on an elusive result, rumored to be in the notebooks of Euler Himself, only to find themselves with a conjecture and no working proof — and three days to go before the plenary talk! It’s a red time for disasters and despair, but while there is coffee there is still hope, for Bobby the Forever Grad Student has hustled up stranger things before! For excitement, caffeine and integration as you’ve never seen it before, turn on for… the Slaves of the Lemma!”

No, no. To be done properly, as a genre, a mathematics-drama (or a mathematicians-drama rather) should not be a slice-of-life piece. Police series are not primarily about the lives of policemen, but about the policing work; the case and not the caseworkers; hospital series are… an example best bypassed here.

But if policing work is “be notified of a crime; solve the crime”, what is mathematicianning work then? “Notice a problem; solve it”?

If a fuller idea of policing work (on TV) is “be notified of a crime; find whodunnit, whydunnit, and how-it-was-dun”, then a fuller idea of a mathematician show would maybe be “notice there’s a mathematical problem that needs a solution or some exploration; do, explore, prove; see what happens and how far you can go; see what others think, and publish if you can; then deal with the confusion, bureaucracy and aftermath.”

When a policeman interviews, and consults the mortuary and the CSI unit and the archives, a mathematician has a bit of a Socratic seminar, and calls colleagues and graduate students and the library; when the TV policeman gets a clue by showy risks and devil-may-care, the TV mathematician could likewise do a bit less of sitting and thinking and scribbling; and when a policeman is for added drama bothered by his officious superiors and the crass press, a mathematician deals with the administrators and… uh, the students?

* * *

Cynical policeman: “Well, it’s supposed to be an idealistic pursuit of Justice, but sometimes it’s just a job. And maybe you finagle the evidence to look better cause the perp sure is guilty, and maybe you do something just to keep your idiot boss happy, and maybe you try to not get too ambitious… but that is life.”

Cynical mathematician: “Well, it’s supposed to be an idealistic pursuit of Truth, but sometimes it’s just a job. And maybe you write the introduction to sound better than the paper is, and maybe you throw the dean a few lies as a report on the PowerPoints PressureVision ExpertiseAreas, and maybe you prod at the same subject as long as it gives… but that too is life.”

### God all over the place

June 9, 2011

We define God to be the most perfect being imaginable. Clearly existence is perfecter than non-existence; and clearly existence in a larger volume is more perfect than existence in a smaller volume. As God is defined to be the most perfect being, if He exists, He must exist everywhere. Either He is nowhere — or He is everywhere. (Also, since it is better to have an ugly nose than no nose at all, God has a nose.)

Except that to call God “being” or “existent” is to erroneously assume God is a mere existent. Rather, as the Root of All Being, God is that which enables existence and thus cannot itself exist. Thus God is supra-existent, which is a higher category above the level of existence and below hyper-existence. But back to the Anselmian exercise, the Plantingan puzzle: if God is anywhere, God is everywhere.

There could be a world where God was, or rather supra-existed; imagine it, it is easy if you try. Narnia suffices. But since God is there (anywhere) He’s here (everywhere) too! If one can even just barely imagine a world where God exists, even if surrounded by trillions of ghastly hypothetical godless cosmoses, then God springs forth and fertilizes every single atheist cosmos with his fertile supra-existence! It’s all or nothing! If a universe with God is conceivable, it logically follows a universe without God is inconceivable!

Now, “everywhere” does not admit granularity; God’s supra-existence is not doled out one piece per every cubic foot of cosmos. If God is in this cosmos, God is everywhere in it, sort of mixed in it; more widespread existence is more perfect, and God is most perfect. (Also, Arnold Schwarzenegger is more perfect than Peter Dinklage; it seems difficult to believe, but logic says so!)

The theological possibilities of this are staggering. (God being everywhere; not the Schwarzenegger-Dinklage observation, which just implies our leaders should be as tall and fat as possible.) Matter is made of atoms; is it more perfect for God to be floating between atoms, or to be, in a supra-existent sense, in the whole whole of the atoms themselves? Clearly it is more perfect for God to be in every atom: every atom is both God and matter, perfect and inseparable.

Since Jesus was an “incarnation” (really, a supra-existence-existence bijection) of God, a perfect union of God and Man without diminution of either, here theology can offer a hand to the uncivil beast-man atheist crowd: sure, Jesus was no-one special. We’re all Jesus!

But not only did God come down as one of us, as Jesus Christ, the cross he was martyred on was God too!

As were the nails, and the centurion with the hammer, in a less incarnate sense. The salvific death of Jesus was, indeed, God killing God on God with God to please God. While God watched and cheered, breathing God spitting God wearing God, standing on very God itself.

And then some say, with lips of God, that we live in a Godless world. As certainly as this keyboard and your screen are God Himself, that is ludicrous!

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It’s not that I dislike the ontological argument. I just can’t take the silly thing seriously. This here and now was occasioned by io9 showing why mathematicians don’t belong in applications.

* * *

Also, as I got into the folly of applying mathematical logistication to empirical matters: all natural numbers (i.e. 1,2,3,…) are interesting, and I can prove it.

Actually, the proof is classical; means every mathematician has heard it, went “Ke ke ke!” in laughter, and filed it away for the next social interaction.

Proof: Assume there are uninteresting natural numbers. Since the set of natural numbers is well-ordered (well d’oh), there is a smallest uninteresting natural number. But hey, “the smallest uninteresting natural number”? That’s an interesting number! A contradiction; all natural numbers must be interesting. Q.E.D.

### Chain fraction: a game for mathematicians

May 19, 2011

People: Two or more teams of two persons each.

Rules: One person in each team is handed a page of mathematical exposition; a page from a journal article, or just a page full of equations. He’s the lecturer; the other, a few meters away, is the author. The lecturer’s mission is to speak out loud the formulas on his paper, while the author writes them down. The errors the author makes are, say, plus five seconds each to the team’s time. (“Wait, what time?”) After the page is done, the roles are reversed.

Goals: The team that does this the quickest wins. Whoever is judging this may deduct time for extraordinary outbursts of rage, or for the utilization of the phrase “What we had in our last paper”.

Note: Why yes, a lot of drink would help. Also, if you’re through, it would be possible though unchivalrous to yell nonsense to disturb the remaining teams. (“Nabla nabla nabla eleven blaagh!”) And the teams could be positioned in some kind of a circular crosshatch pattern not facing each other for added challenge.

As for why I’ve termed this game “chain fraction”, well, this is one:

$\displaystyle \frac{6x+1}{3x^2+\frac{x^2-4}{2x+\frac{11}{-5+\ldots}-1}-x^2}$

(Note: Haven’t tested this, as it was created mere minutes ago: I and a fellow graduate student noticed that some American professor had put his course of discrete mathematics up as a podcast. As in, mp3 files. What, “next we use Lemma 3 on lines (*) and (***) to get the following —”?)

### Research topics

May 10, 2011

Research topics for mathematics:

• LOL functions in Orly spaces
• The numbers of the beast
• Putz-Nebbish problems
• Monitoring systems for time-related reduction of thermal damaging in caffeine intake manifolds
• The lemma of death and related results
• Work-minimizing problems
• Pseudo-studies of quasi-important problems
• Applied grant iterations
• Big motivational problems
• The effects of the arctic climate on the number “7″
• High-impact nude modeling
• Rapid high-impact publishing graphene (WHICH WON NOBEL 2010!!!) research in pure mathematics
• Graphene primes (Love me physics boy!)
• “My aim is the destruction of the Dark Rectorate and all it stands for! My three tools espionage, sabotage, overlong coffee breaks and procrasti… wait, no, my four tools— “
• The Skream-Hurl method
• Harnack-type estimates in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings
• Crash- and liquid-resistant computer peripherals test project
• General minimizing conditions in peacetime
• Optimus primes
• Rabbit multiplication
• Divisions in the modern society
• Degenerate elliptic equations and the guardians of public morality: a comparative critical discourse analysis
• “My dad was both real and imaginary” : the history of complex analysis, 1871–1924
• Metric spaces: A legacy of the French Revolution!
• “Warning! That does not compute!” : A Memoir of a Man Lost in a Hilbert Space
• CDs in the $L^p$ space
• Continuous functions are continuous functions
• Jane Austen’s “Norm and Normability”
• 100 Proof: the eased mathematical work environment
• The best of times, the worst of times : temporal extremals in the works of Charles Dickens
• Students are dense in the classroom : simple proofs
• “I’m in constant pain!” : Why students forget the integration constant, and why it matters
• “Go, and sin no more” : Why students don’t understand trigonometric functions

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“Problems in mathematics.”

“Could you be more specific?”

“Yes.”