I love when I can post stuff that’s nerdy, yet I can still show to my not-quite-as-nerdy friends.

Here are simple logic gates, done in dominos.

Reducing the game of checkers into a group of algorithms of movement, computer scientist Jonathan Schaeffer has developed a program called Chinook that he has proven that at the least will draw. Apparently checkers played in a perfect game will always end in a draw.

Forget hoity-toity chess programs, Chinook has long ago ditched any human competition. The work since then was only to find an unbeatable game, and a proof to the algorithm that is the game of checkers. On the Chinook website is a link to the proof for verification. (I started to, but then I realized how much non-fun I had in my discrete math and program verification course, and decided to put it off until never.)

You can also play against the program, in a more dumbed-down version that is difficult, but that won’t always win.

More on this story at Scientific American

I swear I felt just like these poor kids on my last final of the last semester.

(click to make it bigger)

Especially when you just make shit up. Apparently a

Dr James Anderson, from the University of Reading’s computer science department, says his new theorem solves an extremely important problem - the problem of nothing.

link

He calls his “number” nullity, and it is a representation of a number “off of the number line”. He proudly touts in his video that he has solved the problem that has been plaguing mathematicians for 1200 years, ie: solving problems that would require division by zero. He thereby demonstrates solving 0⁰ with his nullity.

The problem here is, anyone can make up anything not attached to the number line (he showed integers in the video, but I assume he meant all Reals). He is attaching rules that were developed for Real numbers, and trying to say they work for things that aren’t on the Real number line. You can’t go arbitrarily attaching theorems to things, no matter how basic they are. He is making a label for the absence of division by zero, no more. And you can’t compute jack with just a label.

Well, if you can just make crap up like that, I could make, say, a “new” number 3! This number 3 doesn’t reside on the number line, but I’m going to brilliantly assign it the value of the integer 6. Sure, it isn’t actually six, but I’m going to treat it like six so, therefore by my theory: 3 + 3 = 12! w00t, I made new math!

I tried looking over the article to see if he tried, y’know, actually proving something like nullity should exist, but I didn’t find it. If anyone else does, let me know. The report states clearly he is a Computer Science professor at the University of Reading. I’m shocked. I love how he’s showing it to a bunch of pre-teens instead of his actual peers. The kids don’t know what the hell is going on and won’t argue against it. They get to be on TV for it, I mean, why protest?

I wish the semester weren’t over, but I may try to bounce this article off my Discrete Math teacher to watch his head pop off.

In 1956, Maurits Cornelis Escher completed a drawing called Print Gallery. Almost 50 years later, a group of mathematicians at Leiden University, led by Prof. Hendrik Lenstra succeeded in unraveling the mathematical structure of the image.

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Apprently, education is getting more and more difficult…. to get the attention of students, a teacher gave a math test with unusual word problems. What percentage of girls did you knock up in your gang?

Show your work, please.