Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof • Hacker News Board

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#81

Post by bee_rider » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 10:05 PM UTC

tombert wrote: post #47

acureau wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's not as if that promise didn't come true. We do have the world's knowledge at our fingertips. It's more of a curation problem, and a natural result of a decentralized web. Wikipedia could be considered a "megasite", but I'd argue it's more valuable than a million independent sites.

Yeah that's kind of what I was getting at. Who knows what kind of weird mathematical or scientific things have been discovered by hobbyists and posted on some obscure forum thread or abandoned blog that wasn't appreciated by anyone? Like, if someone had a proof for the Goldbach Conjecture, and for whatever reason posted about it on the WatchUSeek forums (just as a throwaway example), it could just lay dormant for who…

Is it better if there are lots of hidden gems tucked away on obscure websites? Actually I think that is a sort of interesting question. The world is a more interesting place if there are hidden bits I guess. And there will be some hidden pieces of info, so maybe it is good if there’s enough out there to incentivize exploration.

On the other hand, it is nice and convenient if everything is indexed.

I dunno. Conflicted.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#82

Post by bee_rider » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 10:07 PM UTC

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 remember when Reddit had a reputation as a pretty gross site. It is kinda funny how their trajectories have differed.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#83

Post by johnnyanmac » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 10:09 PM UTC

rat9988 wrote: post #66

hilsdev wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4chan has a large cesspit, but it gathers a lot of intelligent people who can ignore the noise. For any interest, there’s someone somewhere who made a half decent thread on the topic. There’s decent barriers too (as in the less talked about boards are more thoroughly moderated than the ones that make the news, much like Reddit)

Most popular websites gather a lot of intelligent people. Nothing specific to 4chan.

4chan was very early, if not close to first of what we'd describe as a "forum" and persisted through the decades. That's the notable factor, outside of all the "noise" described above.

But yes, the noise was also a part of the surprise factor here. Many people have this perception that intelligent people are dignified, studious,and fancy in their demeanor. So someone like that hanging out on an "anime forum" can be shocking to some.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#84

Post by appleaday1 » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 10:09 PM UTC

This was done by 4chan.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#85

Post by wombatpm » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 10:11 PM UTC

tombert wrote: post #47

acureau wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's not as if that promise didn't come true. We do have the world's knowledge at our fingertips. It's more of a curation problem, and a natural result of a decentralized web. Wikipedia could be considered a "megasite", but I'd argue it's more valuable than a million independent sites.

Yeah that's kind of what I was getting at. Who knows what kind of weird mathematical or scientific things have been discovered by hobbyists and posted on some obscure forum thread or abandoned blog that wasn't appreciated by anyone? Like, if someone had a proof for the Goldbach Conjecture, and for whatever reason posted about it on the WatchUSeek forums (just as a throwaway example), it could just lay dormant for who…

Just to clarify: all perpetual motion machine videos on TikTok are fake or using the stored energy of magnets over time.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#86

Post by make3 » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 10:12 PM UTC

finnthehuman wrote: post #70

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #24

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 accompl…

>Loath as I am to give 4chan credit for anything positive I love the fact we have somewhere unambiguously lowbrow on the internet. It's fun to watch how highbrow places talk about it.

does it still exist? this is an old story

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#87

Post by 2muchcoffeeman » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 10:12 PM UTC

tocs3 wrote: post #26

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, I fully agree. It’s 2025 now, so it’s actually been bad for a while.

I do sometimes wonder if I should get a current subscription to get access to the archive though.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#88

Post by johnnyanmac » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 10:15 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #55

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose in my head, when the phrase "stumbled upon" is used, it would imply that someone was solving a problem that they weren't intending to solve, or via a method that they weren't intending. A hypothetical headline might be "Food scientist stumbles upon cure for cancer while refining process for fish oil": the scientist wasn't trying to solve the problem of cancer, they were trying to solve the problem of extend…

> But you would find it strange if the article said, "Oncologist stumbles upon cure for cancer while testing new colon cancer treatment." Because in that case, the scientist is seemingly doing what he set out to do--it was not unintentional. I wouldn't really find that strange. Finding a cure for cancer is not an expected outcome of testing a cancer treatment and certainly isn't what the oncologist is trying to do. I…

I don't know how related colon cancer is to general cancer treatment, but sure. If they end up making a general formula while researching a specific one, many people in the field would say they "stumled upon" gold. Even if they were looking for silver to begin with.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#89

Post by johnnyanmac » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 10:18 PM UTC

wombatpm wrote: post #85

tombert wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's kind of what I was getting at. Who knows what kind of weird mathematical or scientific things have been discovered by hobbyists and posted on some obscure forum thread or abandoned blog that wasn't appreciated by anyone? Like, if someone had a proof for the Goldbach Conjecture, and for whatever reason posted about it on the WatchUSeek forums (just as a throwaway example), it could just lay dormant for who…

Just to clarify: all perpetual motion machine videos on TikTok are fake or using the stored energy of magnets over time.

Pretty sure if anyone found true perpetual motion that I'd be hearing about it all month on HN. It'd be a discovery on the level of Newton's laws.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#90

Post by dangrape123 » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 10:20 PM UTC

onetimeusename wrote: post #68

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #24

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 accompl…

This story resurfaces every few years but the original post was on the /sci/ board in 2011. That was a loooooong time ago and although no one back then would have said 4chan was good (it was never good), it also doesn't surprise me it was originally posted there at that time. I don't think it would happen now.

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