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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

#251
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An issue I have with imageboards is that use of images invites low-effort posting because it makes it easy to be as annoying as possible, whereas with pure text making inflammatory remarks at least takes some forethought, and it invites unique forms of creative writing. Anonymous textboards I think have the best forms of banter, but they're dying out these days. Over here people have incentives to appease others by g…

The low-effort posting (AKA shitposting) is part of what makes it great. It's kind of an acquired taste, but there's a certain humor to it.

A shitpost doesn't have to be low effort, rather I'd argue the greatest ones are often quite high effort, and invoke a sense of poetry and lucidity that makes you question what could've gone on inside the head of the person that made it. That style of shitposting was part of the culture of 4chan's now-defunct textboards, and even back then it was markedly different from (and for the most part ignored by) the rest of the site.

For what it's worth, copypastas are the highest (and likely the oldest) form of meme.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#252

Clicking around the previous discussions, it appears that the original question was posted on /sci/, a science and math board on 4chan, and not an anime board, as everybody who writes about this states. This is apparently an archive of the original post: http://4watch.org/superstring/ It's a question to a math community, using an anime meme template and referencing another anime. The discussion is very much not some…

I fear I'm responsible for this misconception. At first we didn't realise the proof had originated on 4chan – Nathaniel Johnston originally found the proof on Wikia, and the 4chan archive was only discovered later. When I tweeted about it, I said “The best known lower bound for the minimal length of superpermutations was proved by an anonymous user of a wiki mainly devoted to anime.”, by which I meant Wikia (which wa…

Regardless, thanks for bringing this to the broader attention of the world!

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear I'm responsible for this misconception. At first we didn't realise the proof had originated on 4chan – Nathaniel Johnston originally found the proof on Wikia, and the 4chan archive was only discovered later. When I tweeted about it, I said “The best known lower bound for the minimal length of superpermutations was proved by an anonymous user of a wiki mainly devoted to anime.”, by which I meant Wikia (which wa…

>At first we didn't realise the proof had originated on 4chan – Nathaniel Johnston originally found the proof on Wikia >by an anonymous user of a wiki mainly devoted to anime.”, by which I meant Wikia (which was pretty anime-centric at the time). The Wikia in question is the official 4chan /sci/ Wikia.

Is /sci/ on 4chan a real hub of traditional research and professional academia? I think I’d be confused by all the distinctions you anime fans are drawing here.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am more surpised that the other amateur mathematian appearing in this article is Greg Egan (He has a personal website on https://www.gregegan.net/ ). He is one of the best contemporary hard SF writers in the world.

He also must be one of the best recreational mathematicians in the world, as anyone who follows his work on his website and Mastodon knows.

>best recreational mathematicians in the world

What does that involve? does that mean he's good at math or is he coming up with new research and theorems and such?

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He also must be one of the best recreational mathematicians in the world, as anyone who follows his work on his website and Mastodon knows.

>best recreational mathematicians in the world What does that involve? does that mean he's good at math or is he coming up with new research and theorems and such?

He has coauthored math/physics papers with John Baez and Dan Christensen off the top of my head, I'm sure there are others.
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