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Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#91

Post by bawolff »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #83
rat9988 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

> 4chan was very early, if not close to first of what we'd describe as a "forum" and persisted through the decades

That feels untrue. 4chan was launched only in 2003. Forums are much older than that.

Especially if you count forum-like things that aren't called forums, like usenet or bbs.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#92

Post by bawolff »

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...

I always found it interesting how serious computer security papers commonly cite random stuff on the internet.

Phrack probably has hundreds or maybe thousands of citations to it at this point.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#93

Post by pimlottc »

bawolff wrote: post #91
johnnyanmac wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

> 4chan was very early, if not close to first of what we'd describe as a "forum" and persisted through the decades That feels untrue. 4chan was launched only in 2003. Forums are much older than that. Especially if you count forum-like things that aren't called forums, like usenet or bbs.

CompuServe used the term “forums” going back at least to the late 1980s

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#94

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

wrs wrote: post #75
tocs3 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are not wrong. Check the archives before the 2000s and it’s a very different magazine. A while back, the editorial direction changed. It used to be aimed at scientists who might be in a different field from the article, or amateurs/nonscientists who were at that level. Then it became more for nonscientists who are somewhat interested in the topic. The new editors seemed to wish it was Discover magazine, and now i…

I only had a subscription during the early 2000s. I think it was still a good magazine. There were still some interesting articles and things to learn.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#95

Post by tombert »

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.

Oh, to be clear, there's a lot of bullshit on the internet, that might be the majority of stuff on the internet. Perpetual motion stuff is an example of bullshit.

Still, I do wonder what cool (and real) stuff on the internet that people don't really know about is actually significant.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#96

Post by thaumasiotes »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #88
thaumasiotes wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> I don't know how related colon cancer is to general cancer treatment

Doesn't matter; that's not relevant to my point. When we attempt to find cancer treatments, we don't expect to find cures. (That's why we say "treatments"!) The goal of research into colon cancer is not to find a cure for colon cancer. It's to get the amount of remission that patients can expect to enjoy higher. Eliminating the cancer entirely is a completely different kind of result, and it would be the goal of a different kind of research.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#97

Post by dragonwriter »

bawolff wrote: post #91
johnnyanmac wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

> 4chan was very early, if not close to first of what we'd describe as a "forum" and persisted through the decades That feels untrue. 4chan was launched only in 2003. Forums are much older than that. Especially if you count forum-like things that aren't called forums, like usenet or bbs.

> That feels untrue. 4chan was launched only in 2003. Forums are much older than that.

Web forums are basically as old as the web; I have accounts that are older than 4chan on forums (what I believe is the oldest forum that I have an account on, which also has my oldest continuous forum account [though not my first forum account] launched in 1996 -- I didn't join until 2002.)

Online forums, more generally, are older than the web, whether you are talking about email listservers, nntp groups, or CompuServe forums.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#98

Post by dylan604 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #89
wombatpm wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is how I feel about AI/LLM discussions, except it's all a perpetual motion machine demo that people are falling for it. Kind of like crypto

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#99

Post by dokyun »

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.

implying hacker news is highbrow

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#100

Post by dylan604 »

bee_rider wrote: post #81
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…

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…

It's kind of like that one scroll tucked away in some catacomb which nobody has looked at for hundreds of years that has the one bit of information that answers so many questions. The information is technically there, but you first need to know where to look. Discovery is always a problem.
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