Strongly Connected Components Episode 6: Lance Fortnow

On today’s episode of Strongly Connected Components I speak with Lance Fortnow, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Northwestern University and founder/co-author of the Computational Complexity Blog. We discuss just what computational Complexity is, P vs. NP, economics and computational     complexity, as well as how the internet is helping to build better scientific communities; oh and twitter gets a shout-out to. To find out more about Professor Fortnow please visit his webpage, his blog , and definitely follow his twitter.

Download this Episode

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Bye Bye Beautiful Sine

I may study mathematics, I may love the discipline but I so wish that I had been taught trigonometry in this way instead:

Dr Wildberger has replaced traditional ideas of angles and distance with new concepts called “spread” and “quadrance”.

These new concepts mean that trigonometric problems can be done with algebra,” says Wildberger, an associate professor of mathematics at UNSW.

“Rational trigonometry replaces sines, cosines, tangents and a host of other trigonometric functions with elementary arithmetic.”

“For the past two thousand years we have relied on the false assumptions that distance is the best way to measure the separation of two points, and that angle is the best way to measure the separation of two lines.” (Physorg)

Breaking News: Stimulus Job Counts Contain Bad Math

Ok, so everyone already knew this but more examples of horrible math embedded in accounting practices abound in the job count numbers for the stimulus as raises are counted as jobs saved. All of you know more than enough about mathematics to understand just why this is idiotic from a mathematical perspective but here is some proof:

President Barack Obama’s economic recovery program saved 935 jobs at the Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, an impressive success story for the stimulus plan. Trouble is, only 508 people work there.

That is not the only case of stupid math, to see more of them just go and read this article.