Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

scientificamerican.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 255 posts

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#21

Post by tombert »

throw9348491 wrote: post #16
tombert wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why it would be something extra ordinary? You give screenshot, date... Journalists do it all the time: "evil X are attacking Y while doing Z". It's just funny. I usually associate 4chan as primarily shitposting. Memes and offensive-stuff-for-the-sake-of-being-offensive and porn. You don't generally see mathematical work being done on there.

I used 4chan for cooking and dietary stuff. It was a huge site, something like reddit. Math stuff was very strong there, I think you just never visited this site!

I have visited the site, but mostly just hung around in /b/. I didn't really check out any of the other forums on there.

I could be wrong, but I think that the average non-active-4chan-user associates 4chan primarily with /b/.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#23

Post by gosub100 »

tombert wrote: post #13
throw9348491 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Why it would be something extra ordinary? You give screenshot, date... Journalists do it all the time: "evil X are attacking Y while doing Z". It's just funny. I usually associate 4chan as primarily shitposting. Memes and offensive-stuff-for-the-sake-of-being-offensive and porn. You don't generally see mathematical work being done on there.

apparently only /b /pol and maybe 1 or 2 others are bananas. the rest is well moderated and civil.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#24

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

Loath as I am to give 4chan credit for anything positive, I feel like the article subject is slightly dismissive with its use of the phrase "stumbled upon." The anonymous 4chan user clearly did the work, it's not as though they came upon a proof written in the sand. For all we know it was a grad student with an ABD in Statistics who just happened to like anime.

But the phrasing almost implies it's not a true accomplishment because "scientists" didn't discover it.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#25

Post by groby_b »

hiccuphippo wrote: post #14
nazgulsenpai wrote: post #3

It could have been a mathematician , you never know with that Anon guy.

If they were mathematicians, they would have published it, no?

Maybe. Writing a publication is a lot more work than a post on 4chan, even if it's a good post.

If it's not your field you might well not bother to write the paper. (After all, it's not your field, somebody might have solved it since it didn't seem that hard, and do you really want to do an exhaustive literature research for a fun puzzle you worked out?)

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#26

Post by tocs3 »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #12
tocs3 wrote: post #4

I have, for a long time, dismissed Scientific American as a pointless work of marketing. This article, on the other hand, makes me think I may be missing some things. The problem is stated in an interesting way that might be broadly understood and enjoyed. It gives some results that are explained well and easily understood. It also leaves some open questions that can be explored, letting the explorer dream about sett…

I used to be a subscriber for years a long time ago. I’m not sure where you got this opinion unless you are basing things on recent years. There was always something interesting in them.

I used to enjoy the magazine and am basing my negative opinion (expressed above) on reading experience on more recent readings. I used to enjoy the amateur scientist and mathematical recreation the most. Then those sections disappeared. I have not been reading it recently so maybe things have changed some.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#27

Post by ziddoap »

tombert wrote: post #5

There's something unbelievably funny to me that actual mathematical papers have to cite a 4chan post. It does make me wonder how much hidden knowledge is hidden in parts of the internet; maybe this is the only genius mathematical thing we've found on 4chan...

Not only cite, but listed as the first author!

https://oeis.org/A180632/a180632.pdf

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#28

Post by thomassmith65 »

tombert wrote: post #5

There's something unbelievably funny to me that actual mathematical papers have to cite a 4chan post. It does make me wonder how much hidden knowledge is hidden in parts of the internet; maybe this is the only genius mathematical thing we've found on 4chan...

ＴＯ ＢＥ ＯＲ ＮＯＴ ＴＯ ＢＥ ＴＨＡＴ ＩＳ ＴＨＥ ＧＧＧＺＯＲＮＯＮＰＬＡＴＴ

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#29

Post by ydnaclementine »

tombert wrote: post #5

There's something unbelievably funny to me that actual mathematical papers have to cite a 4chan post. It does make me wonder how much hidden knowledge is hidden in parts of the internet; maybe this is the only genius mathematical thing we've found on 4chan...

you mean unbelievably based
Post reply on HN