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New sphere-packing record stems from an unexpected source

quantamagazine.org

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Re: New sphere-packing record stems from an unexpected source

#81

Post by fyrn_ »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #76
pseudocomposer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I meet people who immediately use hyper-specific jargon with strangers, I either distrust them, or assume they’re not emotionally intelligent (because it’s a choice demonstrates little respect for the person they’re addressing). It also projects that they may be compensating for some emotional insecurity on their own end, trying to assert intellectual “superiority” in some way. The first option (explaining thing…

> When I meet people who immediately use hyper-specific jargon with strangers, I either distrust them, or assume they’re not emotionally intelligent (because it’s a choice demonstrates little respect for the person they’re addressing). For me, it's quite the opposite: such a choice demonstrates that they their prior is that I'm sufficiently smart and knowledgable to be likely able to understand this explanation - whi…

I think "with strangers" is the important bit. If a nuclear engineer is talking to some lay person and uses hyper specific jargon, then grandparent is correct. If you've established a shared competency with the person, and are therefor no longer total strangers, that's totally different.

Re: New sphere-packing record stems from an unexpected source

#82

Post by lupire »

dsp_person wrote: post #66

> For a given dimension d, Klartag can pack d times the number of spheres that most previous results could manage. That is, in 100-dimensional space, his method packs roughly 100 times as many spheres; in a million-dimensional space, it packs roughly 1 million times as many. Those numbers sound wild. For various comms systems does this mean several orders of magnitude bandwidth improvement or power reduction?

I think not, because moving to a higher dimension is exponentially worse (density ~ n^2/2^n) than this linear improvement.

So it's only helpful for naturally high dimensional objects. Digital objects do not have a natural dimension (byte length), so you can choose a small dimension.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_packing

Re: New sphere-packing record stems from an unexpected source

#84

Post by dsaalgo »

dkarl wrote: post #12
clickety_clack wrote: post #7

I have trouble explaining to my parents how my job is a real thing. I can only imagine trying to explain ‘I study shapes, but only ones that don’t jut inwards’.

I've found it's best to explain my job using unintelligible jargon. There are three choices, really: You can give a quick explanation in terms they understand, which makes your job sound easy and makes them wonder how anybody gets paid to do it. You can explain what you do and why it's important in terms they understand, but it'll take so long they'll get bored and wish they hadn't asked. Or you can give a quick expl…

> There are three choices

There is another:

Give away as little information as you can about it.

Don’t say or agree that it’s secret or that you can’t talk about it- just be tight-lipped, and don’t divulge.

If you do it right, you will seem mysterious.

If you do it wrong, they probably won’t talk to you much again.

Win-win.

Re: New sphere-packing record stems from an unexpected source

#85

Post by shkkmo »

jacobolus wrote: post #20
theteapot wrote: post #4

Noob question: Is the optimal sphere packing correlated with a regular lattice? I.e. that's the case for 2D,3D right? If so does this extend to ND?

Besides 2 and 3 dimensions, it's also the case in 8 and 24 dimensions (The E₈ lattice and Leech lattice, respectively). These were proven in 2017 by Maryna Viazovska, with some collaborators for the second paper. https://doi.org/10.4007/annals.2017.185.3.7 https://doi.org/10.4007/annals.2017.185.3.8 See also https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201702/rnoti-p102.pdf For other dimensions, this is an open question; it…

> For some dimensions the densest known irregular packing is denser than the densest known regular packing.

I thought that was one of the important results from the paper, the most efficient packing for all dimensions is symmetrical again and this increase was significant enough it seems unlikely that existing non-symmetrical methods will be able to beat it.

Re: New sphere-packing record stems from an unexpected source

#86

Post by jimbokun »

clickety_clack wrote: post #7

I have trouble explaining to my parents how my job is a real thing. I can only imagine trying to explain ‘I study shapes, but only ones that don’t jut inwards’.

I describe myself as a plumber but with systems for moving around masses of data instead of water.

Re: New sphere-packing record stems from an unexpected source

#88

Post by jimbokun »

jvanderbot wrote: post #60
dkarl wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found it's best to explain my job using unintelligible jargon. There are three choices, really: You can give a quick explanation in terms they understand, which makes your job sound easy and makes them wonder how anybody gets paid to do it. You can explain what you do and why it's important in terms they understand, but it'll take so long they'll get bored and wish they hadn't asked. Or you can give a quick expl…

I don't see what's hard about threading the needle, or maybe I'm completely lacking in EQ "I'm a mathematician, I study how shapes fit together, which surprisingly, is being used for new methods of secure communication by so and so university, but I just love the math"

Or “I’m a mathematician. I try really hard to find things I can prove that have no practical application. But frustratingly people keep finding important practical applications for my work.”

Re: New sphere-packing record stems from an unexpected source

#89

Post by jimbokun »

sdenton4 wrote: post #39
dkarl wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found it's best to explain my job using unintelligible jargon. There are three choices, really: You can give a quick explanation in terms they understand, which makes your job sound easy and makes them wonder how anybody gets paid to do it. You can explain what you do and why it's important in terms they understand, but it'll take so long they'll get bored and wish they hadn't asked. Or you can give a quick expl…

I kinda love doing the quick+easy explanation... And especially in professional contexts. "I teach computers what sounds different aminals make."

Great pickup line.

Re: New sphere-packing record stems from an unexpected source

#90

Post by xdfgh1112 »

pseudocomposer wrote: post #50
dkarl wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found it's best to explain my job using unintelligible jargon. There are three choices, really: You can give a quick explanation in terms they understand, which makes your job sound easy and makes them wonder how anybody gets paid to do it. You can explain what you do and why it's important in terms they understand, but it'll take so long they'll get bored and wish they hadn't asked. Or you can give a quick expl…

When I meet people who immediately use hyper-specific jargon with strangers, I either distrust them, or assume they’re not emotionally intelligent (because it’s a choice demonstrates little respect for the person they’re addressing). It also projects that they may be compensating for some emotional insecurity on their own end, trying to assert intellectual “superiority” in some way. The first option (explaining thing…

Your default position is distrust and anxiety though. Most people aren't wired that way.
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