HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: kraai4712@iscsvax.uni.edu
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: Re: a first year grad student freaks out.
Date: 19 Nov 92 01:38:15 -0600
Organization: University of Northern Iowa

In article <DREIER.92Nov10235243@durban.berkeley.edu> dreier@durban.berkeley.edu (Roland Dreier) writes:
>In article <92314.170255RVESTERM@vma.cc.nd.edu> <RVESTERM@vma.cc.nd.edu> writes:
>   i'm a first year grad student.  i can do most of the homework assigned
    [much deleted]
>Guess what, kid.  It's even harder than that.  Consider yourself
>extremely lucky if your advisor even gives you a question.  More
>likely, not only are you gonna have to solve a problem, you're gonna
>have to find the problem yourself.  But the advantage of this is that
>you can usually find a problem you can solve if you look hard enough.
>It's still not easy to come up with a problem you can do and also that
>interests other people enough so that they're willing to give you a
>degree.

My turn, I'm an enthusiastic undergrad (Sr.) who's been told he's doing
original research.  I've found a topic.  I've gotten results.  It looks like I
won't quit getting results in my lifetime.  

I'm a terrible traditional, classroom student.  I like to learn subjects in a
few weeks of intense work motivated by specific goals, rather than sitting
through a sixteen weeks of wandering from one cover of a textbook to the other.

I'm afraid that if I can get into a university, my advisor will shelve my
research and have me work solely on their open conjecture.

I'm afraid that with a 2.0 GPA, no university will want me, or my research, or
the curriculum I've developed for the research, or the software that I'm
writing to further the research and enhance the curriculum.  I've got students
in my department asking me to give a class on my research after hours in an
empty classroom.

I love to teach.  "EEK!", grad assistants tell me, "Don't say that if you're
trying to get into grad school, instead tell them that you will die if you
don't publish."  I'm still young enough to have delusions about doing my best
to make sure that the next generation grows up to be thinking, rational human
beings.  Research will be lost if the torch isn't carried and passed on.  How'd
I get on this soapbox?

Give me a pencil and paper and I'm as happy as the proverbial bug-in-a-rug --
my wife cringes whenever I get that faraway look and ask the waitress for a
pencil.  Anyone else live this fantasy?

I've got all the symptoms.  This really is what I want to do.  Is there any
place out there that will let me willingly do what they usually have to pull
teeth to get students to do?  "All I want":  role models & guidance.

Opinions, anyone?  I know that I'm not completely alone, just alone at this
university.
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: deghare@daisy.uwaterloo.ca (Dave Hare)
Subject: Re: Geometrical parking problem.
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 12:58:31 GMT

In article <1992Nov18.143131.25971@schaefer.math.wisc.edu> mueller@schaefer.UUCP (Carl Douglas Mueller) writes:
>In article <1992Nov18.101107.29182@infodev.cam.ac.uk> rgep@emu.pmms.cam.ac.uk (Richard Pinch) writes:
>>In article <1992Nov17.225821.6579@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU> 
>>dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott) writes:
>>>
>>>A car of length L reverses into a parking space without touching the kerb.
>>>Has anyone calculated the minimum theoretical length of the parking space?
>>
>>Yes, it's the length of the car.  The commutator of two rotations is
>>a translation, so you can drive sideways by making very small moves of
>>the form LRLR.
> 
>  Actually, there is no MINIMUM.  The length of the car is not quite enough,
> but the length of the car plus epsilon (for any positive epsilon) is enough.

Is everybody taking into account the fact that rear wheels don't (generally)
turn?

Dave Hare
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: uds@trace.eng.wayne.edu (Seetamraju Udaybhaskar)
Subject: Re: 1+1/2+1/3+1/4+...+1/n
Reply-To: uds@trace.eng.wayne.edu (Seetamraju Udaybhaskar)
Organization: Wayne State University, Detroit
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 20:14:09 GMT

In article <92324.132329K3032E2@ALIJKU11.BITNET> Mutter Christoph Johannes <K3032E2@ALIJKU11.BITNET> writes:
>I've a problem. I have to calculate the sum 1+1/2+1/3+1/4+...+1/n.
>The result should be 100. But my computer is far too slow, to solve this
>problem. I need the index n when the sum > 100.0
>And that exactly.


we know the series can be obtained from substituting x -> 1-, in the integral of the
binomial expansion of   1/(1-x).   Try computing the definite integral of 1/(1-x)
at some value very close to 1.  That should give U a good starting point...
Then its brute force search technique...

BTW, I very much doubt 32 bit precision would help...  Use double precision (64 bit)
to be able to accurately sum the series...


Seetamraju Udaya Bhaskar Sarma
(email : seetam @ ece7 . eng . wayne . edu)

Newsgroups: sci.math
From: gay@selkirk.sfu.ca (Ian D. Gay)
Subject: Re: 1+1/2+1/3+1/4+...+1/n
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 20:42:22 GMT

steve@hubcap.clemson.edu ("Steve" Stevenson) writes:

>gay@selkirk.sfu.ca (Ian D. Gay) writes:

>>>I've a problem. I have to calculate the sum 1+1/2+1/3+1/4+...+1/n.

>>Everybody's computer is too slow!


>Hm. See earlier comments by others on using Maple. Seems that they
>got it without waiting forever. :-)

This is empirical evidence that Maple knows some mathematics! As has 
been pointed out, brute force needs > e^99 terms ~ 10^43 terms. On 
your Cray you may do 10^9 terms per second. So it only needs 10^34 
seconds (and patience) !-)
From: levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Lenore Levine)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: Re: Bozos Synonymous
Date: 16 Nov 92 20:45:48 GMT
Article-I.D.: news.BxttoD.A34
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

ashall@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Andrew S Hall) writes:

>Several people has been beating up on Camille Paglia. Someone even stated that 
>Camille belives that math is a masculine way of thinking etc.  

She does very specifically and definitely say this. I will get
some quotes in the next few days.

>I believe you 
>have Ms. Paglia's writings confused with the femi-nazis she deplores.

If any other feminist writers say that, they are just as foolish.
(Note Ms. Paglia *does* call herself a feminist.)

>                                                  Andrew Hall

Lenore Levine
levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu

Human since 1949, feminist and humanist for 30 years, mathematics 
graduate student for 4 years. Granddaughter of Chana, great-niece
of Leah, daughter of Dinah, sister of Claire -- all of whom had/have
at least as much math talent as I did, should have become
research mathematicians, but didn't...
From: dchatterjee@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: Was Sommerfeld the *first* to use Green's functions in E.M Theory ?
Date: 17 Nov 92 20:36:45 CST
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services



 I was looking up the lecture series of Sommerfeld to find him using the method
 of Green's functions in solving the e.m radiation from a dipole antenna. The
 method of course entails evaluating Sommerfeld integrals - introduced first by
 him. I would just be curious to know if Sommerfeld was the first person to use
 or introduce maybe the method of Green's functions in solving electromagnetic
 radiation or scattering problems. For everyone's information, Sommerfeld type
 integrals occur extensively in geophysical probing (non-destructive testing)
 and in modeling of radiation from printed circuit antennas - that have quite
 extensive applications.
   
     - dc 
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: pratt@Sunburn.Stanford.EDU (Vaughan R. Pratt)
Subject: Re: RSA Encryption
Keywords: cryptography, primes
Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 01:10:16 GMT

In article <avatarp.722363576@well.sf.ca.us> avatarp@well.sf.ca.us (Peter Rothman) writes:
>Originally, I had supposed that algorithm would perform poorly on this  data
>set, but in fact we found that we were able to predict the digits of prime
>numbers with a success rate much greater than chance.  Although this work
>was not taken any  further, I suspect that similar techniques could be used
>to develop statistical algorithms which could make RSA useless.

If RSA depended on primality testing being hard it would have been
still-born.  If you are presented with a 1000-digit composite, the
Miller-Rabin or Strassen-Solovay testers can be arranged to *guarantee*
to find you a proof of its compositenes, in a random time whose mean is
a few minutes and whose tail vanishes exponentially.  Finding a
*factor* of that composite however can keep you occupied for
centuries with present algorithms and computers.

Apropos of which, here is my proof that P=NP.  (I came up with it
around 1972, if you have an earlier source then it's not mine after
all.)  Computers double in speed every 18 months or so, whence any
exponential time problem can be solved in linear time by waiting the
requisite number of months for the problem to become solvable in one
month and then starting the computation.  This counts the waiting time,
and has the additional advantage that you can use your computer on
something else while waiting.
-- 
Vaughan Pratt	  		A fallacy is worth a thousand steps.
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: jumper@spf.trw.com (Greg Jumper)
Subject: Re: closed forms
Reply-To: jumper@spf.trw.com
Organization: TRW Signal Processing Facility, Redondo Beach, CA
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 92 00:34:41 GMT


With regard to the "closed forms" thread, Andrew Mullhaupt said:

     The requisite facts form what is sometimes called Liouville theory.
     See for example the section of that name on pp.  79ff of
     Zwillinger's _Handbook of Integration_, Jones and Bartlett, Boston
     (1992).

and I believe Gerald Edgar also mentioned similar things.

It's been awhile and it was never really my area, but aren't these questions
of closed-form integration part of algebraic geometry and, therefore, possibly
found in Griffith and Harris' tome, or in Clemens'
_A_Scrapbook_of_Complex_Curves_? (Hope I got that title right...)
--

                                       Greg Jumper
                                       TRW Signal Processing Facility
                                       jumper@spf.trw.com


Newsgroups: sci.math
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Re: Another fundamental group question
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 21:48:50 GMT

In article <1eejigINNaqm@agate.berkeley.edu> fogel@rosarita.berkeley.edu (Micah E. Fogel) writes:
>
>	I once saw in this newsgroup an article describing a space that was
>supposed to have fundamental group equal to some non-discrete group (I think
>it was the reals, but the rationals is also possible).  Or was I just dreaming?

Note that unless you know a way to put a natural topology on the
fundamental group of a space - other than the discrete one - it is not
very bad that R and Q are not discrete groups.  I.e., one is only
looking for a space whose fundamental group is isomorphic to R or Q as
*groups*, not as *topological groups*.

Anyway, once one has a description of a group in terms of generators and
relations one can easily cook up a space with that fundamental group.
Simply take a bouquet of circles, one for each generator, and attach
1-cells in a manner prescribed by the relations.  Q is countably
generated so one can use countably many generators.  R is uncountably
generated so the space constructed this way will be quite big and weird.
But for *any* group G one can construct a space X with fundamental group G.


Newsgroups: sci.math
From: psalzman@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu (Peter Salzman)
Subject: Re: Square root of a number
Organization: California State University, Sacramento
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 22:52:16 GMT


There's a method of finding an approximation using differentials, It's a
pretty basic concept, and is taught within the first 2 months of any
beginning calc class.  If you like, I could post it.  

peter
 
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Subject: Re: P=NP
Organization: Smith College, Northampton, MA, US
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 23:59:33 GMT

In article <17NOV92.10310539@uwpg02.uwinnipeg.ca> currie@uwpg02.uwinnipeg.ca writes:
>Question 1: Is this the same Swart from Guelph who claimed about 5 years 
>ago to have a proof that P=NP? 

Yes.

>That proof was found to be erroneous, wasn't it?

Yes.

>Question 2: What is the relation of the posting Swart to the proving Swart?

Son is posting; father is proving.

Xref: sparky sci.math:15233 sci.physics:19227
From: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Three-sided coin (ANSWER)
Date: 19 Nov 92 14:40:24 GMT
Reply-To: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Followup-To: sci.math
Organization: SCRI, Florida State University

In article <1992Nov19.085455.11218@rvgs.vak12ed.edu> abond@rvgs.vak12ed.edu (Andrew H. Bond) writes:
>matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg  writes:
>> 
>> Is there any country in the world that issues such thick coins so we
>> can check this out experimentally?        ... 
>
>If you are really interested in testing this solution, why not
>just get some superglue and glue a bunch of coins together in a
>stack. Superglue forms very thin, rigid layers of adhesive  ... 
>
>Andrew H. Bond, Roanoke Valley Graduate Center

Good for you!  Someone finally proposes an actual *experiment* to look 
at this problem.  For a long while I thought this was sci.metaphysics. 

Must still be a theorist, however.  Coins are not thin enough to get 
an accurate answer this way, but it is a good start to find out the 
parameters of the problem.  Certainly the easiest approach is to 
get some 3/4" dowel and use a miter saw to chop it into a variety 
of lengths (say 5 copies of each length), and enlist some school kids 
or undergrads to take data.  Better yet, go into the shop and cut up
some nice steel rods and build a device to so the flips "perfectly" ...

--
J. A. Carr                                    |  "The New Frontier of which I  
jac@gw.scri.fsu.edu                           |  speak is not a set of promises
Florida State University  B-186               |  -- it is a set of challenges."
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute |   John F. Kennedy (15 July 60)
From: pkk36438@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Polygon)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: What does P=NP mean?
Date: 17 Nov 92 03:54:16 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana


I am not sure what's really going on and I don't know what P=NP mean; however,
I tend to suspect that those who claim that the public-key system is over
watche too many movies like "Sneakers". 

Solving a problem in polynomial time can still be extremely difficult. Can
anyone tell me why it is a major threat to the public-key system if P=NP?

Peter, UIUC
Newsgroups: sci.math,comp.edu
From: pkk36438@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Polygon)
Subject: Re: Minimum standards for math "competency"
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 18:12:02 GMT
Keywords: math competency education university college standards

crawford@boole.mitre.org (Randy Crawford) writes:

>>
>>	o	The math scores of the top 1% of American high school students
>>		would place them in the 50th percentile in Japan (that's not
>>		a typo). How can we expect to compete with Japan in high tech
>>		manufacturing?

>Hoo boy!  Does this statement need qualification!

>In effect, this states that EVERY american student would be below average 
                             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>mathematically in Japan.
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>I'll step out on a limb here and say: RUBBISH!  Such a statement _has_ to be
>completely wrong.  If the margin between the US and Japan were that great, we'd
>see vast differences between us in virtually every form of technology, including
>patents and major prizes for scientific research, which we don't.  We'd find
>ten Japanese students for every American in every non-american and non-japanese
>university, which (I'll bet) we don't.

>But perhaps it's just my gross inadequacy in mathematics speaking...

>>
>>My recommendations to you are as follows: 
>>
>>	o	Hit 'em with facts, HARD. Good sources: Lester Thurow, Head to
>>		Head, Morrow, 1992; and National Academy Press, A Challenge of
>>		Numbers: People in the Mathematical Sciences, 1990. These 
>>		contain extensive references which will point you further.

>More power to references.

>-- 

>| Randy Crawford        crawford@mitre.org        The MITRE Corporation
>|                                                 7525 Colshire Dr., MS Z421
>| N=1 -> P=NP           703 883-7940              McLean, VA  22102


	If you think the Japanese are tough, try to beat the Singaporeans
	first.  Then you will know how far behind are the average American
	high school students.  When most of high school students in certain
	Asian countries or areas start learning calculus in grade 10, some
	of the American college students are still struggling with 
	trigonometry, if not algebra.

	However, it is rubbish to claim that Asian students take advantages
	over American students "absolutely".  In the real world, it takes
	a lot more than calculus to take advantage of others.  Let's not
	forget college student in Japan don't study hard-- at least not that I 
	heard of.  I am not from Japan but all of my Japanese friends told
	me that college students in Japan party most of the time.  Doesn't
	it explain something about the real world situation?

							Peter, UIUC
From: dchatterjee@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: Re: Can anyone solve this problem?
Date: 20 Nov 92 21:34:52 CST
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

In article <1edr2rINNml5@apache.dtcc.edu>, wang@apache.dtcc.edu (Wang Gang) writes:
>



      Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ! 

      Sooooooooooooooooooo difficult problems require specially

      trained eyes to see what exactly the problem is !!!!!!

      - dc
Xref: sparky sci.math:15026 sci.physics:18944 sci.astro:12039 sci.bio:4139 sci.chem:4605 misc.education:4328
From: asmith@acorn.co.uk (Andy Smith)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: Re: the Ultimate Calculator
Date: 16 Nov 92 13:00:00 GMT
Organization: Acorn Computers Limited, Cambridge, UK

corbier@edmund.cs.andrews.edu (Daniel Corbier) writes:

>===============================================================

>     T H E      U L T I M A T E     C A L C U L A T O R

>===============================================================

Sounds good but its hardly the ultimate calculator. Have a look at derive
or Mathmatica for the PC. With Derive 2.5 on an HP 95LX, you can carry it
around in your pocket:-)

Still I suppose its cheaper than Derive:-)

Andy  
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: rkaivola@mits.mdata.fi (Risto Kaivola)
Subject: Re: Prime test algorithm
Organization: Microdata Oy
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 20:44:02 GMT

rkaivola@mits.mdata.fi (Risto Kaivola) writes:


>>Try anonymous FTP from cl-next2.cl.msu.edu and look for lenstra_3.c in the
>>BigNum directory.  The file should be about 91KB in size.  This package
>>has -, +, *, /, mod, primality testing, and exponentiation plus other
>>functions.
>>-- 
>>// Robert J. Kinder, Jr.                             Boca Raton, Florida  -

>I tried to access the site, and it seems that it does permit access from
                                                  ^^^^
                                       I mean, of course, "doesn't".

>sites outside of North America.  Could you point me to some other sites
>where the package might be located, or, alternatively, give me the exact
>names of the files in package (including full paths)?  In the latter case,
>I might be able to use DECFTP, which is presumably located in the USA.
> 

--
Risto Kaivola
(Internet address:   rkaivola@mits.mdata.fi)
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: Re: Three-sided coin
Date: 23 Nov 92 01:26:22 GMT
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA

In article <1992Nov20.191504.17650@husc15.harvard.edu> blom@husc15.harvard.edu writes:
>I came late to this thread, but it sounds like you are looking for a coin that
>would land 1/3 of the time on either face and 1/3 of the time would stabilize
>on its side.  For this to be so the width of the coin should equal its
>radius.  

Prove it.
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Re: compactness ?
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 92 22:46:30 GMT

In article <1992Nov20.211648.3583@research.nj.nec.com> franz@ccrl.nj.nec.com (test user for max) writes:
>I am trying to teach myself analysis; i'm stuck on the notion of compactness.
>One book's definition:
>  A subset S of a metric space E is compact if whenever S is
>  contained in the union of a collection of open subsets of E,
>  then S is contained in the union of a finite number of these
>  open subsets.

This is the right definition.  Below you seem to be using the WRONG
definition:

	A subset S of a metric space E is compact if S is
	contained in the union of a finite collection of open subsets of
E.

>The book (M.Rosenlicht,Intro.to Analysis) then gives an example of
>a non-compact set- the open interval (0,1), which is contained in the 
>union of sets (1/n,1) but not contained in any finite number of these.
>
>? It seems to me that (0,1) is contained in the collection of
>open sets { (0,0.6) (0.5,1) (0,1) } and this has finite subsets that 
>contain (0,1), so (0,1) should be compact. 


Newsgroups: sci.math
From: rkaivola@mits.mdata.fi (Risto Kaivola)
Subject: Fermat's Last Theorem and the FAQ
Organization: Microdata Oy
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 10:30:24 GMT

I haven't seen the FAQ for weeks, and I don't know if it answers my
question.  If it does, I apologize for the inconvenience.

For even n (>= 2) it is trivial to show that there cannot be odd
x, y such that

                    (x**n) + (y**n) = (z**n).

I know that FLT has been proven true for all values of the exponent
n >=3 upto some fixed constant (quite large, I imagine).  My question
is this:  Are there some other trivial cases like this, where we
can easily show FLT to be true for infinitely many n?

--
Risto Kaivola
(Internet address:   rkaivola@mits.mdata.fi)
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: thompson@atlas.socsci.umn.edu (T. Scott Thompson)
Subject: Re: Looking for Time Series Analysis software
Reply-To: thompson@atlas.socsci.umn.edu
Organization: Economics Department, University of Minnesota
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 18:23:04 GMT

wut@acf3.NYU.EDU (Tom Wu) writes:

>	There is a package called RATS (Regression Analysis of
>Time Series) that is very popular among academics. I have seen 
>it being used by Columbia's Business School research center and
>Citicorp's internal research dept. It is basically a high level
>programming language that's capable of doing regrssions, ARIMA
>model fitting and lots of Stat functions that I don't understand.
>I think that it's distributed by VAR. I could check on that if
>you are interested. The version I have is very old, and I am
>not sure if they are making new versions of it.

RATS is very much alive.  It is sold by the maker: VAR Econometrics.  
I don't have any more detailed information.  RATS was reviewed in the
Journal of Applied Econometrics sometime during the past few years.
--
T. Scott Thompson              email:  thompson@atlas.socsci.umn.edu
Department of Economics        phone:  (612) 625-0119
University of Minnesota        fax:    (612) 624-0209
Xref: sparky sci.math:15178 comp.edu:1915 misc.education:4373 sci.edu:1168