^CategoryMathematics

Big Bang in Space, The Birth of the Universe 3d illustration

^{Type
post

Author
Robert J. Marks
Date
July 2, 2022

Categorized
Mathematics

Tagged
Featured, Infinite past leads to absurd results, Infinity and physical universe, Slow Sam illustration, Universe (as having a beginning)}

2. Infinity Illustrates That the Universe Has a Beginning

_{The logical consequences of a literally infinite past are absurd, as a simple illustration will show} _{Robert J. Marks

July 2, 2022

5

Mathematics}

The size of a set is how many elements it contains. The set of letters {A,B,C} and the set of girls {Shirley, Goodness, Mercy} both have a cardinality of three. In a previous post, we showed that the infinities of counting numbers and even numbers are the same. Many subsets of the counting numbers have the same infinite size as the counting numbers. For example, consider the counting numbers and the set of numbers divisible by 10. and The size of the two sets is the same if there is a one-to-one mapping from one set to another. Here, 1 maps to 10, 2 maps to 20, 3 to 30, etc. This continues forever. The two sets are the same Read More ›

Full body gold dragon in infinity shape pose with 3d rendering include alpha path.

^{Type
post

Author
Robert J. Marks
Date
July 1, 2022

Categorized
Mathematics

Tagged
David Hilbert (on infinities), Featured, Georg Cantor on infinities, infinity, Infinity (as understood in math), Infinity (not found in nature), Natural numbers as infinite}

1. Why Infinity Does Not Exist in Reality

_{A few examples will show the absurd results that come from assuming that infinity exists in the world around us as it does in math} _{Robert J. Marks

July 1, 2022

7

Mathematics}

Does infinity exist in reality? There are, surprisingly, scientists who think infinity is a possibility even though they are unable to point to any example of infinity in reality. The great mathematician David Hilbert claimed that “the infinite is nowhere to be found in reality.” Nevertheless, the mathematical theory of infinity developed by Georg Cantor is beautiful. Hilbert was in awe of Cantor’s beautiful theory and said “No one shall drive us from the paradise which Cantor has created for us.” An assumption of the infinite leads to weird counterintuitive results. In this and the following four articles, various ludicrous properties of the infinite are explored. We’ll see, for example, that the entire Library of Congress is encoded somewhere in almost every Read More ›

Croupier behind gambling table in a casino

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
June 20, 2022

Categorized
Mathematics, Probability

Tagged
Advantage players and stock market, Advantage players' casino strategies, Alan Woods, Bill Gross, Blackjack (card game), Card Counting, Featured, Gambling and probability, Richard Dennis, Robert J. Marks, Salvador Cordova, Turtles experiment (1983), William Eckhardt}

Can Casinos Ban Customers Who Might Get TOO “Lucky”?

_{Sal Cordova was good enough at card counting that his photo was circulated and casino nabbed his driver’s licence…} _{News

June 20, 2022

15

Mathematics, Probability}

In a recent podcast, “When the house can’t win the game, it will change the rules” (June 9, 2022), Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks continued his discussion with mathematician, computer scientist, and engineer Salvador Cordova on the mathematics of gambling — who wins, who loses, and why. Last week, we looked at the struggle between the casino and the “advantage player” who knows very well how the system works and spots its weaknesses. But now, what about banning a suspiciously “lucky” would-be customer outright? Here’s what happened to Sal Cordova: https://mindmatters.ai/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/Mind-Matters-News-Episode-190-Sal-Cordova-Episode-2-rev1.mp3 This portion begins at roughly 11:10 min. A partial transcript and notes, Show Notes, and Additional Resources follow. Sal Cordova: One of the better things is that Read More ›

African American smiling woman math teacher stands at black board with pointer.

^{Type
post

Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
June 17, 2022

Categorized
Education, Mathematics

Tagged
Equations in math teaching, Exponents in math teaching, Featured, Math teaching: rules vs principles}

Reviving the Relational View of Mathematics

_{Unfortunately, some textbooks teach number rules rather than relationships, so students may not know why the rule matters} _{Jonathan Bartlett

June 17, 2022

6

Education, Mathematics}

While helping a friend’s teenage son with math, I was perusing the textbook used. I was dismayed by the presentation of the topic of translating graphs. More than that, I believe the issue reflects some general problems with how mathematics is typically presented to high school students. Specifically, the text addressed how to do graph transformations for exponential functions. That is, if you have a function with the form y = a ⋅ bx (where a and b are constants), how would you create a new equation whose graph was moved up, down, left, or right? The method the book proposed, while technically correct, misses a huge opportunity to help students. The book presents a general form for transforming exponential Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
June 7, 2022

Categorized
Mathematics

Tagged
Advantage players in gambling, Advantage players' casino strategies, Don Johnson, Featured, Gambler's Fallacies, Gambling and probability, Law of Large Numbers and gambling, Robert J. Marks, Salvador Cordova}

Casinos: How Nerds Gamble and Win, Using the Law of Large Numbers

_{The American Physical Society created Las Vegas’s worst week in history and Don Johnson cleaned out Atlantic City. How?} _{News

June 7, 2022

14

Mathematics}

In last week’s podcast, “The house always wins in the long run” (June 2, 2022), Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks interviewed mathematician, computer scientist, and engineer Salvador Cordova on the world of gamblers and how they try to improve their odds by physically manipulating dice (dice sliding ) and cards (false shuffling). Meanwhile, the house is relying on the Law of Large Numbers, which — being a mathematical law — wins out in the end. Sure, the Law may always win — but perhaps anyone can play it. Where we left the matter last time, in the first portion of this episode, Cordova talked about how “advantage players” try to make it work. In this second segment of Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
June 6, 2022

Categorized
Mathematics, Philosophy

Tagged
David Hilbert (on infinities), Hilbert's Hotel, Infinity (as understood in math), Kasper Müller, Marianne Freiberger}

Math Fun: Hilbert’s Hotel Manager Copes With Infinity With Poise!

_{What, exactly, happens when a would-be guest shows up at a fully booked hotel — with infinite rooms?} _{News

June 6, 2022

5

Mathematics, Philosophy}

Hilbert’s Hotel is a thought experiment that the great mathematician David Hilbert (1862–1943) developed to help us see the “counterintuitiveness of infinity.” He asks us to imagine a hotel which is “full” — except that because it is infinite, it can always create one more room. Mathematician Marianne Freiberger explains: Suppose that your hotel has infinitely many rooms, numbered 1, 2, 3, etc. All rooms are occupied, when a new guest arrives and asks to be put up. What do you do? It’s easy. Ask the guest in room 1 to move to room 2, the guest in room 2 to move into room 3, the guest in room 3 to move into room 4, and so on. If there Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
May 16, 2022

Categorized
Mathematics, Natural Intelligence

Tagged
Bees (and arithmetic)}

Claim: Honeybees, “Like Humans” Can Tell Odd vs. Even Numbers

_{Ants, fruit flies, and even plants can also calculate but it does not follow that they are conscious of what they are doing} _{News

May 16, 2022

4

Mathematics, Natural Intelligence}

Recently, researchers, using sugar water, taught honeybees to distinguish odd from even numbers: Our results showed the miniature brains of honeybees were able to understand the concepts of odd and even. So a large and complex human brain consisting of 86 billion neurons, and a miniature insect brain with about 960,000 neurons, could both categorize numbers by parity. Scarlett Howard, Adrian Dyer, Andrew Greentree and Jair Garcia, “Honeybees join humans as the only known animals that can tell the difference between odd and even numbers” at Phys.org (April 29, 2022) The paper is open access. That should, of course, be a hint that bees are probably using a much less complex process than humans. Bees would be useful for this Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
May 4, 2022

Categorized
Economics, Mathematics, Sports

Tagged
draft picks}

Why Giving the Second Best Guy a Chance Is a Smart Move

_{Business prof Gary Smith explains…} _{News

May 4, 2022

2

Economics, Mathematics, Sports}

Gary Smith, author of The AI Delusion, has some interesting advice for those who think that a star athlete wins only on performance: It doesn’t quite work that way: A study by two business school professors, Cade Massey and Richard Thaler, found that the chances that a drafted player will turn out to be better than the next player drafted in his position (for example, the first quarterback drafted compared to the second quarterback drafted) is only 52%, barely better than a coin flip.Yet, teams pay much more for early draft picks than for later picks. Even leaving salary aside, teams that trade down (for example giving up the first pick in the draft for the 14th and 15th pick) Read More ›

abstract illustration of Indian celebrating mathematics day Jayanti or Ramanujan Srinivasa holiday

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
May 1, 2022

Categorized
Mathematics, Philosophy

Tagged
Ashwin Sharma, Freeman Dyson, Srinivasa Ramanujan}

A Brilliant Mathematician’s Last Letter Continues To Matter

_{Sadly, Ramanujan’s life was cut short by various health issues} _{News

May 1, 2022

2

Mathematics, Philosophy}

One of the most remarkable mathematicians in history was Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920) whose life was cut short by tuberculosis. In an interesting essay, psychiatrist Ashwin Sharma asks us to look at ways that his last letter helps us understand our universe better: A cryptic letter addressed to G.H. Hardy on January 12th, 1920, will be remembered as one of the most important letters in Scientific history. Written by Srinivasa Ramanujan, a self-taught mathematical genius who, laying on his deathbed, left hints of a new and incredible mathematical discovery. Unfortunately, the letter was to be his last, dying three months later at 32. Ramanujan’s discovery took over 80 years to solve, and with it came answers to some of the most Read More ›

Blue glowing 4 dimensional object in space abstract fractal background

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
April 20, 2022

Categorized
Mathematics, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Flatland (short novel), Modes of Sentience (book), Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes, Tesseract}

Hard Problem of Consciousness Solved?: A 4th Spatial Dimension?

_{Philosopher Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes argues that higher spatial dimensions might hold the key} _{News

April 20, 2022

2

Mathematics, Philosophy of Mind}

In an abridged chapter of his recent book Modes of Sentience (2021), University of Exeter philosopher of mind, Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes, argues that higher spatial dimensions might hold the key to the hard problem of consciousness:” He is a fan of the More–Broad–Smithies theory of consciousness: The word tesseract was coined by the aforementioned mathematician and author Charles Howard Hinton, [58] whose work on the fourth dimension can be used to our ends. In his essay of 1880, ‘What is the fourth dimension?’ – published four years prior to the related book Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott – Hinton employs analogy to lower dimensional worlds to elucidate a speculated four-dimensional world. I shall briefly explain it, then connect this four dimensional world to the n-dimensional world of Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
April 14, 2022

Categorized
Education, Mathematics

Tagged
Durham University, Jonathan Turley}

No, Civilization Has NOT Won the War on Math. Not Yet Anyway…

_{The war on math is now coming down to the race — not the ideas — of mathematicians} _{News

April 14, 2022

2

Education, Mathematics}

Legal scholar Jonathan Turley muses on the latest assault on math teaching in schools: We previously discussed the view of University of Rhode Island and Director of Graduate Studies of History Erik Loomis that “Science, statistics, and technology are all inherently racist.” Others have agreed with that view, including denouncing math as racist or a “tool of whiteness.” Now, as part of its “decolonization” efforts, Durham University is calling on professors in the math department to ask themselves if they’re citing work from “mostly white or male” mathematicians. According to the Telegraph and The College Fix a guide instructs faculty that “decolonising the mathematical curriculum means considering the cultural origins of the mathematical concepts, focusses, and notation we most commonly use.” It adds: “[T]he question of whether we have allowed Read More ›

matching keys made of circuits & led lights, encryption & crypto

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
April 13, 2022

Categorized
Computer Security, Mathematics

Tagged
Computer hacking, Cryptography, Erica Klarreich, Kolmogorov complexity}

New Clue in the Problem That Haunts All Cryptography?

_{A string that has no description shorter than itself is a good bet for cryptography. If the hacker doesn’t know it, he can’t use shortcuts to guess it.} _{News

April 13, 2022

4

Computer Security, Mathematics}

A central problem in all computer security (branch of cryptography) is the one-way problem. Cryptography should function as a one-way street: You can go north but you can’t go south. So if a hacker doesn’t have the code to go north, he can’t go anywhere. Which is where the computer security expert would like to leave the hacker… Is there such a thing as a one-way function in mathematics? Mathematician Erica Klarreich says, probably yes, and explains what it looks like: To get a feel for how one-way functions work, imagine someone asked you to multiply two large prime numbers, say 6,547 and 7,079. Arriving at the answer of 46,346,213 might take some work, but it is eminently doable. However, Read More ›

Math Equations of Artificial intelligence AI deep learning computer program technology - illustration rendering

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
April 12, 2022

Categorized
Information Theory, Mathematics

Tagged
Eric Holloway (on information and mass), Factorials, Information (as having mass), Melvin Vopson, Rob Sheldon, Rob Sheldon (on information as having mass)}

Does Information Have Mass? An Experimental Physicist Weighs In

_{Physicist Melvin Vopson argues that information has mass; Eric Holloway replies that, if so, it must come from outside the universe. Meanwhile…} _{News

April 12, 2022

4

Information Theory, Mathematics}

It’s generally held that information does not have mass. However, physicist Melvin Vopson, reflecting on the work of Rolf Landauer (1927–1999), offers a somewhat alarming view: Not only does information have mass but that — at the rate we humans output it now — its energy will outweigh Earth. Yesterday, Eric Holloway offered a response to that claim: Let’s accept that creation of information can indeed increase the amount of energy and mass in a system. But, according to the conservation of energy, the energy in a closed system remains constant. So, if Vopson is correct we now have a mystery because his theory is in tension with the conservation of energy. The only solution is that the system is Read More ›

Two stingrays are swimming on the blue sea near the underwater rocks and white sand.

^{Type
post

Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
April 1, 2022

Categorized
Mathematics, Natural Intelligence

Tagged
Abstraction (and counting), Fish (and math), Rafael Núñez}

Did Researchers Teach Fish To “Do Math”?

_{Some test fish learned how to how to get food pellets but the difficulty, as so often, lies with interpretation} _{Denyse O'Leary

April 1, 2022

4

Mathematics, Natural Intelligence}

University of Bonn researchers think that they may have taught fish to count. They tested the fact that many life forms can note the difference in small quantities between “one more” and “one less,” at least up to five items. Not much work had been done on fish in this area so they decided to test eight freshwater stingrays and eight cichlids: All of the fish were taught to recognize blue as corresponding to “more” and yellow to “less.” The fish or stingrays entered an experimental arena where they saw a test stimulus: a card showing a set of geometric shapes (square, circle, triangle) in either yellow or blue. In a separate compartment of the tank, the fish were then Read More ›

scoring during a basketball game - ball in hoop

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
March 29, 2022

Categorized
Creativity, Mathematics, Sports

Tagged
Featured, Gary Smith, Jim Alexander, Regression toward the mean, Success (luck vs. skill)}

Luck Matters More Than Skill When You’re at the Top

_{What? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? No, because… Prof. Gary Smith explains} _{News

March 29, 2022

5

Creativity, Mathematics, Sports}

With basketball fever at a high pitch… when LA Times sportswriter Jim Alexander talked to Pomona College business prof Gary Smith about what it takes to win, he got a different answer than some might have expected. If you are really good, it takes luck to win, Smith explained. What? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? No, because… “You can take the four best golfers in the world – any sport, but let’s do golf because it’s head-to-head,” Smith said in a phone conversation this week. “And they play a round of golf and see who gets the lowest score, and it’s pretty much random. Nobody’s going to win every single time. One guy might win more than 25 Read More ›

Science and research of the universe, spiral galaxy and physical formulas, concept of knowledge and education

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
March 26, 2022

Categorized
Mathematics, Physics

Tagged
Fine structure constant, Golden Ratio, Jordan Ellenberg, Laurence Eaves, Natalie Wolchover, Paul Ratner, Paul Sutter, Pi, Shape (book), Wolfgang Pauli}

Unexplained — Maybe Unexplainable — Numbers Control the Universe

_{For example, brilliant physicist Richard Feynman called 1/137, the fine structure constant, “a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man”} _{News

March 26, 2022

7

Mathematics, Physics}

In Carl Sagan’s Contact, the extraterrestrials embedded a message in the irrational number pi (the circumference of a circle divided by its radius). But some other numbers are critical to the structure of our universe too — and why they are critical does not make obvious sense. ➤ Perhaps the most fundamental and mysterious one is the fine structure constant of the universe: A seemingly harmless, random number with no units or dimensions has cropped up in so many places in physics and seems to control one of the most fundamental interactions in the universe. Its name is the fine-structure constant, and it’s a measure of the strength of the interaction between charged particles and the electromagnetic force. The current Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
March 21, 2022

Categorized
Education, Mathematics

Tagged
Mathematics, mathematics education}

What Do We Want With Mathematics Curriculum?

_{If we are going to dedicate such a large portion of our children's lives to learning mathematics, we had better know why} _{Jonathan Bartlett

March 21, 2022

6

Education, Mathematics}

Modern policy discussions in America almost always leave out the biggest question – why are we doing what we are doing in the first place? Leaving out first principles always leaves people trying to find the most practical way to accomplish nothing in particular. We have become accustomed to not asking questions about first principles because they always sound too doctrinaire, but then we wind up, at best, making the misplaced assumption that everyone is reaching for the same goal, or, far worse, viewing the activities themselves as the goals. One place where this problem repeatedly rears its ugly head is education, and especially mathematics education. Why are we teaching math? What do we want people to get out of Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
March 3, 2022

Categorized
Creativity, Mathematics, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Ali Kayaspor, Carl Friedrich Gauss, G. H. Hardy (1877-1947), Mathematicians (creative thinking), Srinivasa Ramanujan}

Do Mathematicians Think Differently From Other People?

_{A math teacher illustrates some ways in which creative ones do but it’s really about imagination, not just getting the figures right} _{News

March 3, 2022

6

Creativity, Mathematics, Philosophy of Mind}

Math teacher Ali Kayaspor has thought a lot about how mathematicians have come up with fundamental ideas about the nature of reality and he shares anecdotes that give us a glimpse. But first, the cold shower: Unfortunately, there is no clear way to answer the question of how a mathematician thinks. But we can approach this question as follows; if you watched any chess tournament, the game’s analysis is shared in detail at the end of the match. When you examine the analysis, you will see a breaking point in each game. Similarly, mathematicians also experience a breaking point while working on a problem before finding a solution. Ali Kayaspor, “How Does a Mathematician’s Brain Differ from Other Brains?” at Read More ›

Man's hand holding white blank styrofoam ball with handwritten imaginary number formula against the white background.

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
February 16, 2022

Categorized
Mathematics

Tagged
Art of More (book), Ben Turner, Imaginary numbers (as essential), Michael Brooks, Sabine Hossenfelder}

Why Would a Purely Physical Universe Need Imaginary Numbers?

_{Our computers and the entire modern world depend on them, says science writer Michael Brooks in an excerpt from his new book} _{News

February 16, 2022

4

Mathematics}

In an excerpt from his new book, The Art of More: How Mathematics Created Civilization, science writer Michael Brooks offers the intriguing idea that the modern world arose from imaginary numbers: Imaginary numbers are not imaginary at all. The truth is, they have had far more impact on our lives than anything truly imaginary ever could. Without imaginary numbers, and the vital role they played in putting electricity into homes, factories, and internet server-farms, the modern world would not exist Michael Brooks, “Imaginary Numbers Are Reality” at Nautilus (February 9, 2022) Imaginary numbers, are we recall from school, are the square roots of minus numbers. Two plus numbers, multiplied, result in a plus number. But so do two minus numbers. Read More ›

Black female student in front of chalkboard

^{Type
post

Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 24, 2021

Categorized
Education, Mathematics

Tagged
California Math Framework, Cicadas (and prime numbers), Iron Ring (Canadian engineers), Math education (accelerated classes), Mathematics (unsolved problems), Mathematics (war on math), Pythagoras (world as mathematical), Sam Baron, War on math}

If Reality Is Fundamentally Mathematical, Why the War on Math?

_{Just as physicists are recognizing the mathematical nature of reality more clearly, the basic idea of getting math right is under fire in our schools} _{Denyse O'Leary

November 24, 2021

7

Education, Mathematics}

Sam Baron, a philosophy prof at Australian Catholic University, whose specialty is the philosophy of mathematics, argues in a new paper that mathematics is not a human invention. It gives structure to the world we live in. We simply observe it. So do many life forms, it seems. He offers an example: There are two subspecies of North American periodical cicadas that live most of their lives in the ground. Then, every 13 or 17 years (depending on the subspecies), the cicadas emerge in great swarms for a period of around two weeks. Why is it 13 and 17 years? Why not 12 and 14? Or 16 and 18? One explanation appeals to the fact that 13 and 17 are Read More ›