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Burning Man's Mathematical Underbelly

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Burning Man's Mathematical Underbelly

#21

Post by jonnybgood »

resu_nimda wrote: post #19
elcinr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They have a higher than average desire to be challenged A lot of them also take a lot of MDMA and drink a lot of alcoholic beverages. There's something for everyone at BM.

Perhaps there's some kind of correlation there? The science/math/tech world is rife with users of amphetamines (including the ones that are prescribed for use by medical professionals, e.g. Adderall, Vyvanse, etc.). Mathemetician Paul Erdos famously championed them. Maybe you can explain why you felt the need to point this out with such disdain?

> Mathemetician Paul Erdos famously championed them.

He took them but he didn’t champion them. He especially didn't want people to think they needed amphetamines to do mathematics.

Re: Burning Man's Mathematical Underbelly

#22

Post by resu_nimda »

jonnybgood wrote: post #21
resu_nimda wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps there's some kind of correlation there? The science/math/tech world is rife with users of amphetamines (including the ones that are prescribed for use by medical professionals, e.g. Adderall, Vyvanse, etc.). Mathemetician Paul Erdos famously championed them. Maybe you can explain why you felt the need to point this out with such disdain?

> Mathemetician Paul Erdos famously championed them. He took them but he didn’t champion them. He especially didn't want people to think they needed amphetamines to do mathematics.

Ok perhaps "championed" was a strong word but he was open about the fact that he considered them important for his own mathematical abilities.

And I am by no means trying to encourage people to take them if they don't want to, just to accept that others can do it responsibly and it's ok. I'm just bewildered by the hardline "drugs are bad, m'kay" stance that many people take. Whatever research we have been able to do on amphetamines has generally shown them to be safe and even beneficial for human use (when used appropriately).

Re: Burning Man's Mathematical Underbelly

#23

Post by DrHuman »

lifthearth wrote: post #16
elcinr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They have a higher than average desire to be challenged A lot of them also take a lot of MDMA and drink a lot of alcoholic beverages. There's something for everyone at BM.

Hangovers are hell in that environment. If you got to burning man for the free drinks you're an idiot and won't come back. MDMA is fun to make a night of but not the drug of choice out there.

What's the drug of choice out there?

Re: Burning Man's Mathematical Underbelly

#24

Post by [deleted] »

adamsea wrote: post #13
mkstowegnv wrote: post #4

A nice article for someone who knows nothing about Burning Man. If you've been, you will learn little that you don't already know. Burners choose to play in a difficult, often uncomfortable environment. They have a higher than average desire to be challenged - by everything from esoteric math and physics discussions to learning (as novices) moderately advanced contradancing (a radically inclusive danceform [1] that h…

> They have a higher than average desire to be challenged ... perhaps somebody's ego needs to be challenged ... ;)

[deleted]

Re: Burning Man's Mathematical Underbelly

#25

Post by QML »

We weren’t always so lucky. One year, before we’d even finished setting up the booth, a cadre of MIT undergraduate physicists stumped us with ‘Soap bubbles physically solve minimal surface problems. Are there any other physical phenomena that quickly solve NP-type problems?’

Anyone have more resources on this? I could only find a brief overview by Scott Aaronson [1].

[1]. https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/npcomplete.pdf

Re: Burning Man's Mathematical Underbelly

#27

Post by pstuart »

DrHuman wrote: post #23
lifthearth wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hangovers are hell in that environment. If you got to burning man for the free drinks you're an idiot and won't come back. MDMA is fun to make a night of but not the drug of choice out there.

What's the drug of choice out there?

Alcohol is #1.

Re: Burning Man's Mathematical Underbelly

#28

Post by westoncb »

QML wrote: post #25

We weren’t always so lucky. One year, before we’d even finished setting up the booth, a cadre of MIT undergraduate physicists stumped us with ‘Soap bubbles physically solve minimal surface problems. Are there any other physical phenomena that quickly solve NP-type problems?’ Anyone have more resources on this? I could only find a brief overview by Scott Aaronson [1]. [1]. https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/npcomple…

The main thing I wonder about this is whether it's misleading to say the soap bubble is 'solving' a problem of high computational complexity.

If we were to form a description of its state evolving, framed as a computation, then that computation would be in such and such a complexity class—sure. But if you want to go ahead and say that soap bubble is literally computing in the same sense, you're making a number of implicit philosophical commitments that I have yet to see a justification for when this subject is brought up.

Edit: to clarify, what I'm getting at is whether we're using it to solve what is a problem for us, or whether it literally has to 'find a solution' in order to get into the state it gets into, so that principles of computational complexity etc. would be somehow applicable to what it's doing.

Re: Burning Man's Mathematical Underbelly

#29

Post by guest2143 »

westoncb wrote: post #28
QML wrote: post #25

We weren’t always so lucky. One year, before we’d even finished setting up the booth, a cadre of MIT undergraduate physicists stumped us with ‘Soap bubbles physically solve minimal surface problems. Are there any other physical phenomena that quickly solve NP-type problems?’ Anyone have more resources on this? I could only find a brief overview by Scott Aaronson [1]. [1]. https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/npcomple…

The main thing I wonder about this is whether it's misleading to say the soap bubble is 'solving' a problem of high computational complexity. If we were to form a description of its state evolving, framed as a computation, then that computation would be in such and such a complexity class—sure. But if you want to go ahead and say that soap bubble is literally computing in the same sense, you're making a number of imp…

My grad school professor was at a bar with a consultant friend who was trying to find the optimal wiring paths for routing expensive electric cables.

My professor asked for the change in his pocket: they went to the hardware store and got plexiglass, dowel and drill. In the hotel room, the put together a model of the points to connect between the plexiglass sides and dunked it in the soapy hotel tub.

the pattern the soap bubbles formed was the shortest path between the electrical tower model.

Re: Burning Man's Mathematical Underbelly

#30

Post by zawerf »

guest2143 wrote: post #29
westoncb wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main thing I wonder about this is whether it's misleading to say the soap bubble is 'solving' a problem of high computational complexity. If we were to form a description of its state evolving, framed as a computation, then that computation would be in such and such a complexity class—sure. But if you want to go ahead and say that soap bubble is literally computing in the same sense, you're making a number of imp…

My grad school professor was at a bar with a consultant friend who was trying to find the optimal wiring paths for routing expensive electric cables. My professor asked for the change in his pocket: they went to the hardware store and got plexiglass, dowel and drill. In the hotel room, the put together a model of the points to connect between the plexiglass sides and dunked it in the soapy hotel tub. the pattern the…

I know this as the Euclidean Steiner Tree problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steiner_tree_problem

There are some videos doing exactly what you described: https://youtu.be/dAyDi1aa40E?t=95

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