[math-fun] Computer Science alternative to "Pi Day" ?
I love Pi; I love 2Pi twice as much! (sqrt(2pi) -- don't ask) However, Pi is too math & physics oriented, and doesn't say anything specifically about computer science. So what would be the single number that most computer science people would recognize and acknowledge as being representative of computer science? Some possibilities, just to warm people up: ln(2) ~ .693 (Computer science people only want logs to base 2!) phi ~ 1.618 (One of Knuth's favorite numbers) gamma (Euler's constant) ~ .57722 (related to digital approx to log function) (should this be digital approx to log2 function?!?) Gibb's constant ~ 1.8519 (Inevitable overshoot for digital/square waves) Sierpinski triangle dimension ~ 1.58496 (Visual representation of why recursive algorithms can be efficient!) Any other suggestions?
So what would be the single number that most computer science people would recognize and acknowledge as being representative of computer science?
Chaitin's constant represents computer science in a deep way: it embodies the eventual behaviour of every computer program. The only problem is that its numeric value depends on your choice of prefix-free encoding of computer programs. Best wishes, Adam P. Goucher
On 11/5/2018 2:55 PM, Henry Baker wrote:
I love Pi; I love 2Pi twice as much! (sqrt(2pi) -- don't ask)
However, Pi is too math & physics oriented, and doesn't say anything specifically about computer science.
So what would be the single number that most computer science people would recognize and acknowledge as being representative of computer science?
Some possibilities, just to warm people up:
ln(2) ~ .693 (Computer science people only want logs to base 2!)
I memorized 2.302581 early on, ln(10), to convert to base e. Brent
phi ~ 1.618 (One of Knuth's favorite numbers)
gamma (Euler's constant) ~ .57722 (related to digital approx to log function) (should this be digital approx to log2 function?!?)
Gibb's constant ~ 1.8519 (Inevitable overshoot for digital/square waves)
Sierpinski triangle dimension ~ 1.58496 (Visual representation of why recursive algorithms can be efficient!)
Any other suggestions?
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On 11/5/2018 3:23 PM, Kerry Mitchell wrote:
On Mon, Nov 5, 2018 at 4:20 PM Brent Meeker <meekerdb@verizon.net> wrote:
I memorized 2.302581 early on, ln(10), to convert to base e.
Brent
This is a natural choice. Following Pi Day tradition, ln(10) ~ 2.30 can be memorialized annually on February 30. :-)
Well, not exactly annually. Brent
My recommendation: 0, i.e. zero. -- Gene On Monday, November 5, 2018, 2:58:25 PM PST, Henry Baker <hbaker1@pipeline.com> wrote: I love Pi; I love 2Pi twice as much! (sqrt(2pi) -- don't ask) However, Pi is too math & physics oriented, and doesn't say anything specifically about computer science. So what would be the single number that most computer science people would recognize and acknowledge as being representative of computer science? Some possibilities, just to warm people up: ln(2) ~ .693 (Computer science people only want logs to base 2!) phi ~ 1.618 (One of Knuth's favorite numbers) gamma (Euler's constant) ~ .57722 (related to digital approx to log function) (should this be digital approx to log2 function?!?) Gibb's constant ~ 1.8519 (Inevitable overshoot for digital/square waves) Sierpinski triangle dimension ~ 1.58496 (Visual representation of why recursive algorithms can be efficient!) Any other suggestions?
The only candidate is 1024. It's the only "computer science" number that's in general use, even though it's use is corrupted as a shorthand for 1000. I guess that would be October 24'th.
256 obviously ! On 5 Nov 2018, at 22:55, Henry Baker wrote:
I love Pi; I love 2Pi twice as much! (sqrt(2pi) -- don't ask)
However, Pi is too math & physics oriented, and doesn't say anything specifically about computer science.
So what would be the single number that most computer science people would recognize and acknowledge as being representative of computer science?
Some possibilities, just to warm people up:
ln(2) ~ .693 (Computer science people only want logs to base 2!)
phi ~ 1.618 (One of Knuth's favorite numbers)
gamma (Euler's constant) ~ .57722 (related to digital approx to log function) (should this be digital approx to log2 function?!?)
Gibb's constant ~ 1.8519 (Inevitable overshoot for digital/square waves)
Sierpinski triangle dimension ~ 1.58496 (Visual representation of why recursive algorithms can be efficient!)
Any other suggestions?
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The meaning and purpose of life is to give life purpose and meaning. The instigation of violence indicates a lack of spirituality.
My suggestion : 65537, 65536 or 4294967296 (2^32) Simon Plouffe Le 2018-11-06 à 03:57, David Makin via math-fun a écrit :
256 obviously !
On 5 Nov 2018, at 22:55, Henry Baker wrote:
I love Pi; I love 2Pi twice as much! (sqrt(2pi) -- don't ask)
However, Pi is too math & physics oriented, and doesn't say anything specifically about computer science.
So what would be the single number that most computer science people would recognize and acknowledge as being representative of computer science?
Some possibilities, just to warm people up:
ln(2) ~ .693 (Computer science people only want logs to base 2!)
phi ~ 1.618 (One of Knuth's favorite numbers)
gamma (Euler's constant) ~ .57722 (related to digital approx to log function) (should this be digital approx to log2 function?!?)
Gibb's constant ~ 1.8519 (Inevitable overshoot for digital/square waves)
Sierpinski triangle dimension ~ 1.58496 (Visual representation of why recursive algorithms can be efficient!)
Any other suggestions?
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun The meaning and purpose of life is to give life purpose and meaning. The instigation of violence indicates a lack of spirituality.
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65537, the last(?) Fermat prime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/65,537 "65537 is commonly used as a public exponent in the RSA cryptosystem" IETF 4871 (May 2007) "DKIM" *requires* rsa-sha1 with public exponent 65537. (Which is interesting, considering that SHA-1 has been considered insecure since 2005, and Google produced a SHA-1 collision in 2017.) A "square word" architecture having registers that have 256x256 bits each (plus a parity/carry/overflow bit) would be interesting, as it could also be used as a 65536-bit Pratt Boolean Vector Machine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICL_Distributed_Array_Processor Pratt, Rabin, Stockmeyer. "A Characterization of the Power of Vector Machines". STOC74. At 09:43 PM 11/5/2018, Simon Plouffe wrote:
My suggestion : 65537, 65536 or 4294967296 (2^32) Simon Plouffe
Le 2018-11-06 à 03:57, David Makin via math-fun a écrità :
256 obviously !
On 5 Nov 2018, at 22:55, Henry Baker wrote:
I love Pi; I love 2Pi twice as much! (sqrt(2pi) -- don't ask)
However, Pi is too math & physics oriented, and doesn't say anything specifically about computer science.
So what would be the single number that most computer science people would recognize and acknowledge as being representative of computer science?
Some possibilities, just to warm people up:
ln(2) ~ .693 (Computer science people only want logs to base 2!)
phi ~ 1.618 (One of Knuth's favorite numbers)
gamma (Euler's constant) ~ .57722 (related to digital approx to log function) (should this be digital approx to log2 function?!?)
Gibb's constant ~ 1.8519 (Inevitable overshoot for digital/square waves)
Sierpinski triangle dimension ~ 1.58496 (Visual representation of why recursive algorithms can be efficient!)
Any other suggestions?
Why not “Pi Epochs”? The last one was January 1, 1970 and the next one will be January 19, 2038. -Veit
On Nov 5, 2018, at 5:55 PM, Henry Baker <hbaker1@pipeline.com> wrote:
I love Pi; I love 2Pi twice as much! (sqrt(2pi) -- don't ask)
However, Pi is too math & physics oriented, and doesn't say anything specifically about computer science.
So what would be the single number that most computer science people would recognize and acknowledge as being representative of computer science?
Some possibilities, just to warm people up:
ln(2) ~ .693 (Computer science people only want logs to base 2!)
phi ~ 1.618 (One of Knuth's favorite numbers)
gamma (Euler's constant) ~ .57722 (related to digital approx to log function) (should this be digital approx to log2 function?!?)
Gibb's constant ~ 1.8519 (Inevitable overshoot for digital/square waves)
Sierpinski triangle dimension ~ 1.58496 (Visual representation of why recursive algorithms can be efficient!)
Any other suggestions?
participants (10)
-
Adam P. Goucher -
Andrew Trevorrow -
Brent Meeker -
Dave Dyer -
David Makin -
Eugene Salamin -
Henry Baker -
Kerry Mitchell -
Simon Plouffe -
Veit Elser