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Opinions expressed on these pages were the views of the writers and did not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the American Mathematical Society.
Category Archives: Mathematics and Computing
The Blockchain Party
Maybe you think bitcoin is silly, maybe you think it’s dangerous and socially irresponsible, maybe you’re a bitcoin millionaire (in which case, hi), or maybe you are desperate to join the blockchain party. Whatever your stance, it seems that you … Continue reading
Take The Math Less Traveled
Mathlesstraveled is a blog “dedicated to exploring beautiful mathematics.” The blog is written by Brent Yorgey, an assistant professor in the department of math and computer science at Hendrix College, who lives closer to the computer science end of mathematics. … Continue reading
Posted in Mathematics and Computing, Mathematics and the Arts
Tagged Brent Yorgey, mathlesstraveled
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Best of the Bots
A slew of paint colors named by a neural network, including such gems as “turdly” and “rose hork,” made it big last week, with mentions in Ars Technica, The AV Club, and even The Atlantic. But for the story straight … Continue reading
Black Hat, White Hat
Meanwhile, over in computer science…several days ago WannaCry almost brought the world to its knees until an anonymous tech blogger, MalwareTech, brought it to a screeching halt by activating a hiding-in-plain-sight kill-switch. MalwareTech blogged about the wild 12 hour epic … Continue reading
Posted in Current Events, Mathematics and Computing
Tagged computer science, cryptography, cybersecurity, hacker, malware, WannaCry
1 Comment
More Graph Isomorphism Drama
That plucky graph isomorphism problem is at it again! In November 2015, University of Chicago computer scientist Laszlo Babai announced an algorithm to determine whether two graphs are isomorphic in quasipolynomial time, and there was much rejoicing. (My co-blogger Anna … Continue reading
Posted in Mathematics and Computing
Tagged computational complexity, computer science, graph isomorphism, graph theory, Laszlo Babai
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Opening The Cryptographic Backdoor
Unless you’ve been living off the grid somewhere in an igloo build out of old discarded iPhones, you’ve probably heard about the recent standoff between Apple and the US government. The short story, is that the US Government has demanded … Continue reading
Posted in Data Science, Mathematics and Computing, Number Theory
Tagged Apple, cryptography, iPhone
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Meanwhile Over In Computer Science
An algorithm has just been proposed for solving the graph isomorphism problem in quasipolynomial time, dealing a serious blow to hard problems all over the world. But let me first explain what all of those words mean. Graphs, you’ll recall, … Continue reading
Posted in Events, Mathematics and Computing
Tagged complexity theory, Gabriel Gaster, graph theory, Jeremy Kun, Laszlo Babai, Luca Trevisan, P vs NP, Scott Aaronson
2 Comments
Who Is The Anti-vax Movement? Data Science Explains.
It was all theoretical until Jenny McCarthy gave Sidney Crosby the mumps. Then it got real. Ok, I know that’s a sensationalist — not to mention flagrantly untrue — thing to say, but it’s how I suddenly felt a few … Continue reading
Posted in Biomath, Mathematics and Computing
Tagged data science, data vizualization, math, math and health, Statistics
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e is for Ebola
A recent NPR blog features a few quotes emphasizing a math word that is lamentably absent from many readers’ vocabularies: “It’s spreading and growing exponentially,” President Obama said Tuesday. “This is a disease outbreak that is advancing in an exponential … Continue reading
Posted in Applied Math, Biomath, Math Education, Mathematics and Computing, people in math, Statistics
Tagged Amy Greer, Basic Reproduction Ratio, Caitlyn Rivers, computational epidemiology, David Hartley, Ebola, Effective Reproduction Ratio, Ellsworth Campbell, Exponential growth, IDEA, SIR model
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