magicdragon2 ([info]magicdragon2) wrote,
@ 2004-07-18 19:44:00
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New comments on "I, Robot" and on Math as Sport
NPR (National Public Radio) just broadcast this morning a story on how Hollywood got it wrong with "I, Robot."

To my delight, they played audio clips of comments by Harlan Ellison (who wrote the greatest Science Fiction screenplay never produced) and Dr. Geoffrey Landis (award-winning Science Fiction author who has experiments on several Mars robots). NPR also and quoted Janet Jeppson Asimov.

That is, NPR got it right on how Hollywood got it wrong. I was one of the two who recommended Harlan's screenplay of "I, Robot" for a Nebula Award. Shortly afterwards, the other did the same: Isaac Asimov!

Picus Fiche comments, on the (non-LJ) "Making Light" blog:
"Oh, and back to I, Robot: It did well in the box office. A head honcho at Fox had this to say about Will Smith":

"'My God, this guy opens movies,' said Bruce Snyder, head of distribution at 20th Century Fox, which released 'I, Robot.' 'He's just so likable, he takes something like science fiction, which can be a little cold, and he makes it warm and entertaining.'"

"I hate Hollywood sometimes."

As to Math:

Is Math a Sport?
And what about target shooting, Skee-Ball, and standing on one foot?

By Jordan Ellenberg

Posted on slate.com
Thursday, July 15, 2004, at 2:20 PM PT

"Last week, the first contingent of U.S. Olympians arrived in Athens. The five men and one woman, survivors of a merciless selection process, stood ready to test themselves against the strongest competitors in the world.
Sunday, they go home."

"Their competition, the International Mathematical Olympiad, is already over. The math Olympiad may not attract a worldwide broadcast audience or demand traffic-jamming last-minute infrastructure fixes like the Olympic Games per se. But it's a contest as rigorous and rarefied as anything you'll see on NBC this August. Could mathletes someday compete alongside track stars and basketball players under the aegis of the five rings?...."

There was a discussion of this earlier this week [Thursday 15 July 2004] on slashdot.com

I believe that Math is a Sport, AND an artform.

Math is a breathmint AND a candymint.

Discussion here?

(10 comments) - (Post a new comment)

Comments on Math as Sports/Artform
[info]magicdragon2
2004-07-18 08:06 pm UTC (link)
Bill Blum says (on "Making Light"): July 18, 2004, 10:08 AM:

Math is a breathmint AND a candy?

Well, then, the quality control needs some work, since math leaves a bad taste in so many people's mouths.....

Then Andy Perrin commented on that comment:

Bill said to JVP: Well, then, the quality control needs some work, since math leaves a bad taste in so many people's mouths.....

I think it's just that not everyone likes mint. (My mother, for example.)

abby (on MakingLight) added:

JvP said, "math is a Sport AND an artform."

Like dance, only different. Then again, I used to try to explain to people that I liked ballet class in the same way that I like math. I'm still surprised at the number of my friends to whom that comparison made sense.

PiscusFiche got back to the "I, Robot" thread:

JvP: Ooooo. Is the NPR clip online? (Alas, I usually end up listening to NPR while at work, so I missed it.) I'm afraid I, Robot is my new favourite bee-in-bonnet. My boyfriend sits tensely through all the trailers now, fearing that the I, Robot trailer will appear and launch a monologue from me about Isaac's revolutions per second. Bill Shunn also recommends spending the money you would have spent on movie tickets and purchasing the Ellison treatment instead.

Andy Perrin (on makinglight) notes:

I think mathematicians have ugly jargon. What could be more boring than monotonically? The physicists have crunchier descriptives, like color, charm and spin. Also, the delicious "Principle of Least Action."

Question to all: What are your favorite jargon words or phrases?

That produced a volley of fine phrases on
Open Thread 25 on Making Light

to which I wrote:

Mathematical terminology can be intriguing, restricting myself here to just to some alphabetically in "A" described on Eric Weisstein's Mathworld.com. [Eric and I each got two degrees from Caltech, but his web domain is far more useful than mine: he's got over 19,000 pages about Math! I find minor errors in some of them. Proofreading Math is much harder that proofreading fiction slushpiles]. Anyway, from the top of "A":

Abnormal Number
Absolute Moment
Absolutely Fair
Abstraction Operator
Accidental Cancellation
Admissible
Agnesi's Witch [good fantasy title]
Ahlfors Five Island Theorem [Travel Channel]
Airy-Fock Functions [Adult Math?]
Alexander's Horned Sphere
Algebraic Gadget
Algebraic Unknotting Number
Alhazen's Billiard Problem [ESPN]
Alias Transformation [good Mystery title]
Almost Complex Structure
Almost Perfect Number
Alternative Denial [Psychiatry?]
Ambiguity Function
Amicable Numbers
Ampersand Curve
Anarboricity [a town in Michigan?]
Anger Function [Psychiatry again]
Angel Problem [Theomathematics]
Animal
Annihilator [Thriller title]
Antimagic Square [Fantasy title]
Antisnowflake [part of a snowball in Hell?]
Antoine's Necklace [Romance title]
Apocalypse Number [Thriller title]
Apollonian Gasket [use Algebraic Gadget]
Arachnida
Arborescence
Archimedes' Revenge [Thriller]
Aristotle's Wheel Paradox [Travel Channel]
Arnold's Cat Map
Arrow's Paradox
Art Gallery Theorem
Ass and Mule Problem
Asymmetric Propeller Theorem
Atomic Statement
Attraction Basin

Off the top of my head, if I started beyond A, I'd have such as "Ham Sandwich Theorem."

Yes, I agree that Mathematics is akin to dancing in a hard-to-describe way.

I got pretty far this weekend on a paper about factoring Polynomials with Fibonacci, Tribonacci, Tetranacci, Pentanacci, Hexanacci, Heptanacci, Octanacci, and Lucas Number coefficients. I finished a paper on Semiprime Figurate Numbers.

And boy, are my dancing legs tired.

(Reply to this)

Best slashdot comments on Math as a Sport
[info]magicdragon2
2004-07-18 08:15 pm UTC (link)
SydShamino (547793) on Saturday July 17, @07:50PM (#9727628)

No, math is not an athletic sport. But it is still something to compete in and be proud of. I got a few nice trips and multiple days out of school in high school to travel for math competitions, and I wasn't particularly good at them.

What upsets me more, though, is how academic and athletic achievement are recognized so differently.

For example, a student athlete has their records published in the newspaper, the yearbook, and is recognized at student events. The student athletes that aren't as good don't get as much recognition, but their performances are public record as well.

Contrast this with schools that are having to eliminate 'A' and 'B' honor rolls, because publication of such rolls shows that everyone not on those lists are 'C' or below students.

So someone who's even marginally good at sports get to see their name in the paper, and get talked about at school, while those who are good at academics might get a note from the teacher with an extra smiley face sticker. No wonder academic instruction in the US is going downhill.

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Poker on ESPN (Score:5, Interesting)
by ikea5 (608732) on Saturday July 17, @04:44PM (#9726558)
Well, if World Series Of Poker can be broacasted [sic] on ESPN, then I guess math is a sport.

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Another NO (Score:5, Funny)
by pr0c (604875) on Saturday July 17, @04:55PM (#9726639)
(Last Journal: Sunday April 25, @07:55PM)
In all real sports you can reasonable expect someone to get injured.

If someone isn't going to get hurt.. why bother!

[magicdragon2 says: we discussed on an earlier thread about math driving some people literally insane]

+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=

I was Captain of my Math Team at Simon F. Rothschild Junior High School. My son was Captain of his Math Field Day team in his Middle School. Sure felt like sports to us!

(Reply to this)

Okay, I give up. What are "semiprimes"??
(Anonymous)
2004-07-18 08:37 pm UTC (link)
You say that you just wrote a paper on "semiprimes."

I know what a Prime is. I know what a "semi" is. But how do you put them together? I mean, either a number is a prime or it's not. can't be halfway. I don't get it...

MathAngst

(Reply to this)

Definition and examples of Semiprimes
[info]magicdragon2
2004-07-18 08:50 pm UTC (link)
Instead of explaining my Semiprimes paper, let me just define the term.

A semiprime is an integer which is the product of exactly two possibly equal) primes. A Prime, of course, is a whole number greater than 1 which can not be evenly divided by any numbers except 1 and itself. A number greater than 1 which is not prime is called composite.

For example:

1 is not a prime, semiprime, or composite. It is a "unit."
2 is not a semiprime. It is a prime.
3 is not a semiprime. It is a prime.
4 is a semiprime, because 4 = 2 x 2 (and each 2 is prime)
5 is not a semiprime. It is a prime.
6 is a semiprime, because 6 = 2 x 3 (each of which is prime)
7 is not a semiprime. It is a prime.
8 is not a semiprime, because 8 = 2 x 2 x 2 (which is 3 primes)
9 is a semiprime, because 9 = 3 x 3 (and each 3 is prime)
10 is a semiprime, because 10 = 2 x 5 (each of which is prime)
11 is not a semiprime. It is a prime.
12 is not a semiprime, because 12 = 2 x 2 x 3 (which is 3 primes)
2004 is not a semiprime, because 2004 = 2 x 2 x 3 x 167 (which is 4 primes)

Okay?

Almost all publications about semiprimes are in Ring
Theory, Algebras, Lie Groups, and so forth. Except for
RSA, the Rivest-Shamir-Adelman algorithm for Public Key Cryptosystems, which is based on semiprimes with both prime
factors big.

Here's another important exception:

Chen Jingrun [May 22, 1933 - March 19, 1996] was a
mathematician from Fuzhou, Fujian, China. He is
considered an important figure in China's mathematical
history.

His work on the twin prime conjecture and on
Goldbach's conjecture led to progress in analytic
number theory. In a 1966 paper he proved what is now
called Chen's theorem: every sufficiently large even
number can be written as the sum of either two primes,
or a prime and a semiprime (the product of two
primes) -- e.g., 100 = 23 + 7x11.

That is, he showed that there are infinitely many
primes p such that p + 2 is a either a prime or a
semiprime In mathematics, a semiprime (also called
biprime or 2-almost prime) is a natural number that is
the product of two (not necessarily distinct) prime
numbers. The first few semiprimes are 4, 6, 9, 10, 14,
15, 21, 22, 25, 26, ...

The approach he took involved a topic called sieve
theory, and he managed to treat the twin prime
conjecture and Goldbach's conjecture

In mathematics, Goldbach's conjecture is one of the
oldest unsolved problems in number theory and in all
of mathematics. It states: "Every even number greater
than 2 can be written as the sum of two primes. (The
same prime may be used twice.)"

For example,
4 = 2 + 2
6 = 3 + 3
8 = 3 + 5
10 = 3 + 7 = 5 + 5
12 = 5 + 7
14 = 3 + 11 = 7 + 7 etc.

This is not an area where High School or college
algebra students are likely to be comfortable.

Some curiosities about semiprimes [from
www.mathpuzzle.com/29Jun2003.html]:

14029308060317546154181 × 37280713718589679646221 =
38! + 1 is a semiprime.

10^66 + 3 is a semiprime.

Each of the 30 numbers 13298267 + 1887270 k,
k=0..29, is a semiprime.

{There is no longer Arithmetic Progression of
semiprimes whose terms are all less than 10^8.
according to Hartley}

Are 10^100+37 and 10^100+39 semiprimes?

But none of this belongs in my Semiprime Figurate
Number paper, as too off-topic.

(Reply to this)

Two mathematical research papers done this week
[info]magicdragon2
2004-07-19 03:36 pm UTC (link)
Sorry about being stuck in bold on the previous post.

This weekend, plus this morning, I completed two mathematical research papers:

"Semiprime Reciprocal Constant" [5 single-spaced pages]

and

"Semiprime Figurate Numbers" [16 single-spaced pages]

I submitted the latter to Mathematics Magazine ( laser-printed copies), and await an email from the assistant editor acknowledging receipt, assigning a manuscript number, and reminding me that I must wait months for initial screening and then more months for referee reviews.

I emailed the former to some friends, implicitly asking that those with better computational resources (faster number-crunchers) help me to iterate further and calculate a more accurate value of the constant that I defined.

I also wrote a satirical poem, about the Color Marketing Group and its influence on fashion, which I intend to submit to Esquire.

Now back to getting the repaired car reinsured and reregistered...

(Reply to this)


[info]kappa_l
2004-08-11 03:41 pm UTC (link)
Completely off-topic, but I'd like to inform you that I added you. I'm not quite sure if I'll be able to understand much, but I'm sure willing to learn something new.

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Off-topic? Asimov-related?
[info]magicdragon2
2004-08-12 02:23 pm UTC (link)
kappa_l:

Always being willing to learn something NEW is one of the best of all human traits. Children have a lot of it. Bad parenting and bad schooling tend to make many people unwilling to learn anything new. How sad for them!

Part of my job as a part-time Math Professor is to reach students who have been given up on, and think that they can't do Math. Many have flunked algebra two or three times. By great effort, and creative 2-way communication, I have rescued almost every such student. Hard work, but worth doing.

EVERY human being has a story to tell. EVERY human being has capabilities beyond what they currently achieve.

Thank you for your participation...

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Mathematicians... absorbed in mental acrobatics
[info]magicdragon2
2006-03-04 07:56 am UTC (link)

"Mathematicians boast of their exacting achievements,
but in reality they are absorbed in mental acrobatics
and contribute nothing to society."

-- Sorai Ogyu, (1666 - 1729) Complete Works on Japan's Philosophical Thought. 1956.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

(Reply from suspended user)

[info]smystery
2008-07-25 12:09 am UTC (link)
I love I Robot, an interesting idea about human and robot

Regards
Smystery

References:
- Book Review
- Books for the Richer and Professional

(Reply to this)

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