most recent 30 from http://mathoverflow.net 2013-05-23T10:13:02Z http://mathoverflow.net/feeds/user/6427 http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/rdf http://mathoverflow.net/questions/117415/old-books-still-used/117469#117469 Daniel McLaury 2012-12-29T02:43:42Z 2012-12-29T02:43:42Z

<p>If computer science counts as math, then The Art of Computer Programming (first volume published 1968) would be a good example of a text that's still in wide use.</p>

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/101644/fiction-books-about-mathematicians/101740#101740 Daniel McLaury 2012-07-09T05:33:50Z 2012-07-09T05:33:50Z

<p>Clifton Fadiman assembled a couple of anthologies of stories featuring mathematics and/or mathematicians as main characters. </p> <p><strong>Fantasia Mathematica</strong></p> <p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fantasia-Mathematica-Clifton-Fadiman/dp/0387949313/" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Fantasia-Mathematica-Clifton-Fadiman/dp/0387949313/</a></p> <p><strong>The Mathematical Magpie</strong></p> <p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Magpie-Clifton-Fadiman/dp/038794950X" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Magpie-Clifton-Fadiman/dp/038794950X</a></p> <p>Some are good, some are not so good.</p>

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/99506/blackbox-theorems/99677#99677 Daniel McLaury 2012-06-15T06:55:55Z 2012-06-15T06:55:55Z

<p>Chevalley's theorem: any algebraic group is the extension of a linear algebraic group by an abelian variety.</p>

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/69476/fast-evaluation-of-polynomials/69515#69515 Daniel McLaury 2011-07-05T05:58:09Z 2011-07-05T05:58:09Z

<p>Consider the polynomial $f(x) = nx$, where $n$ is an integer. Here are two algorithms which will evaluate this polynomial:</p> <p>Algorithm 1. Multiply $n$ by $x$.</p> <p>Algorithm 2. Calculate $x + x + \ldots + x$.</p> <p>Which is more efficient? Given fixed $n$, this depends on your processor architecture. And this is just about the simplest case imaginable -- we only have one variable, the polynomial is linear, and we're not even thinking about pipelined calculations yet. Also, as mentioned before, you are going to have to formalize the problem in some way which eliminates the "algorithm" consisting of a table giving the value at each machine-sized number. As stated, I don't think the question is answerable.</p>

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/45185/pseudonyms-of-famous-mathematicians/45210#45210 Daniel McLaury 2013-01-03T04:31:15Z 2013-01-03T04:31:15Z

I take it &quot;gatti&quot; is the Italian word for &quot;cats&quot;?

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/116516/orientation-of-manifold-in-topological-sense Daniel McLaury 2012-12-16T07:30:14Z 2012-12-16T07:30:14Z

This question would be better suited to math.stackexchange.com

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/42929/suggestions-for-good-notation Daniel McLaury 2012-12-10T01:13:21Z 2012-12-10T01:13:21Z

Well, if X is a set, then the Cartesian product $X^n$ is the set of functions from $[n] = {1, 2, \ldots, n}$ to X, so naturally $X^A$ is the set of functions $A \to X$.

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/54986/why-is-the-laplacian-ubiquitous/57265#57265 Daniel McLaury 2012-08-19T06:20:32Z 2012-08-19T06:20:32Z

For fellow monolinguals: &quot;complessive&quot; is apparently an Italian adjective which has not yet been imported into English, and which means something like &quot;comprehensive.&quot;

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/101644/fiction-books-about-mathematicians/101647#101647 Daniel McLaury 2012-07-09T05:28:11Z 2012-07-09T05:28:11Z

This book is probably a large part of why I wanted to be a mathematician when I grew up.

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/3559/colloquial-catchy-statements-encoding-serious-mathematics/62194#62194 Daniel McLaury 2012-07-05T08:02:59Z 2012-07-05T08:02:59Z

I think he's talking about &quot;spitten&quot; (past participle) versus &quot;spitting&quot; (present participle).

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/74841/an-example-of-a-beautiful-proof-that-would-be-accessible-at-the-high-school-level/75553#75553 Daniel McLaury 2012-06-15T18:49:10Z 2012-06-15T18:49:10Z

When I was shown the Reidemeister moves in school, several of my classmates and I made the objection, in essence, that it wasn't clear that they generated everything. Worse, since we didn't have topology to work with, we didn't really have a &quot;real&quot; definition to compare it with, so it felt to us that the real issues were being swept under the rug.

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/99385/is-mathoverflow-about-to-die Daniel McLaury 2012-06-12T20:08:36Z 2012-06-12T20:08:36Z

@Gil Kalai, I believe the OP's style is a reference to this: <a href="http://mathoverflow.net/questions/22299/what-are-some-examples-of-colorful-language-in-serious-mathematics-papers/22360#22360" rel="nofollow" title="what are some examples of colorful language in serious mathematics papers">mathoverflow.net/questions/22299/&hellip;</a>

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/96510/have-we-ever-lost-any-mathematics/96537#96537 Daniel McLaury 2012-05-14T07:19:13Z 2012-05-14T07:19:13Z

Given that the title translates roughly as &quot;Remembering Lost Topology,&quot; I'd assume so.

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/21881/how-should-one-present-curl-and-divergence-in-an-undergraduate-multivariable-calc/22053#22053 Daniel McLaury 2012-04-20T04:28:24Z 2012-04-20T04:28:24Z

Soon, I was able to learn what had been a full year's worth of material in a few weeks. Whenever I bring this up in mathematical company, I'll always hear the same thing -- &quot;Yeah, me too. I didn't understand any of that stuff until I learned differential geometry.&quot;

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/21881/how-should-one-present-curl-and-divergence-in-an-undergraduate-multivariable-calc/22053#22053 Daniel McLaury 2012-04-20T04:25:28Z 2012-04-20T04:25:28Z

I agree wholeheartedly -- despite having the highest score in my vector calculus course, I had absolutely no idea what any of these things <i>meant</i>. I even ended up failing a physics class after finding myself completely unable to make sense of the divs, grads, and curls. Several years later, while trying to get a feeling for homological algebra, I picked up a book talking about de Rham cohomology since I'd heard that it was a good source of practical examples. By the time I was six or seven pages in, I suddenly understood everything I'd spent years struggling with in completely futility.

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/92140/what-is-seetapun-enigma/92141#92141 Daniel McLaury 2012-03-25T16:02:16Z 2012-03-25T16:02:16Z

So you've seen a preprint, then? Is there one publicly available?