Post AylytKB5k1O2Bso2fQ by llewelly@sauropods.win
(DIR) More posts by llewelly@sauropods.win
(DIR) Post #Aybf93GKSXsnhIsWsS by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-26T18:34:07Z
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It’s wild to me this story didn’t make a bigger splash when it was discovered. Legendre is huge! I have looked on that face in deep frustration. But, just look at the difference between the incorrect portrait and the only known one based on the man himself!But this makes so much more sense now. Everything about gamma functions… it’s all falling into place for me. https://divisbyzero.com/2009/11/19/legendre-who/
(DIR) Post #AybfHPfl1U0fWAl9Qe by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-26T18:35:38Z
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He never looked like the sort of person who would do analytic continuation on the factorial. But the new version? yes that is the man who did this.
(DIR) Post #AybfXuwoViVB9JbiXg by summer@bark.lgbt
2025-09-26T18:38:32Z
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@futurebird
(DIR) Post #AybgudhAv6EWFzgtxw by emeb@society.oftrolls.com
2025-09-26T18:53:45Z
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@futurebird I came across this story back in May and just love that caricature.
(DIR) Post #AybgzMi1VC0V1TLDSy by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-26T18:54:47Z
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I don’t know? this had a big impact on me. Maybe it is odd to look up portraits of the people who did things that interest you. But, I distinctly remember looking at the wrong image and being kind of annoyed that someone who did such unexpected things with math looked so boring— I thought he seemed like that kind of person who was good at everything. Pleasant at parties, well dressed, nice manners. How annoying. The new one somehow more comforting. I KNEW he wasn’t a normie!
(DIR) Post #AyblDQ5A9nCRM67bgO by darkling@mstdn.social
2025-09-26T19:42:08Z
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@futurebird I just went to look up Galois, expecting to find nothing (since he died aged 20), but there is indeed a portrait (aged 15) that looks like exactly the kind of troublemaker I expected him to be.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89variste_Galois#/media/File:Evariste_galois.jpg
(DIR) Post #AycBsiX147YxFvVEDg by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-27T00:40:53Z
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@darkling *hand pops up*"I'm done!"
(DIR) Post #AycDGe1LaW2EAbfAZM by bitsnpieces@mastodon.social
2025-09-27T00:56:26Z
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@futurebird The Grinch cosplaying as Heat Miser
(DIR) Post #Ayd8TXX6iPKbCUoAJk by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-27T11:37:30Z
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@darkling The story about him being asked to sum all of the numbers from 1 to 1000 and finding a shortcut as a child is probably as fake as the one about George Washington and the cherry tree. But, I still like it and it is a part of Mathematics Culture, it's one of our parables that illustrates the values of the community. So, I still tell it with that caveat and the hope that it will inspire young people to look for ways to avoid drudgery.
(DIR) Post #Ayd93EeOOh5J3wEjPk by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-27T11:43:56Z
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@darkling I'm fascinated by Math Culture because math people tend to think it doesn't exist. All of the traditions, fables, superstitions, variations in language are totally invisible to many of them because obviously math is made of logic and culture is made of nonsense and so how could there be any such thing what are you talking about?But, also these things can be the cause of a kind of gatekeeping but by talking about them and defining them as culture not logic that barrier may vanish.
(DIR) Post #Ayd9NBJwUGjKWjBMmG by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-27T11:47:32Z
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@darkling I once did an informal survey of regents exams marked by NYC math teachers. I was tasked with sorting several 100 word problems but I was curious if student handwriting had any impact on the subjective points that could be awarded for partial credit. Specifically I suspected that students who wrote the letter "x" like a times symbol (eg not in cursive) were awarded fewer points than those who did all else being equal. From my rough count of the points this seemed to be the case!
(DIR) Post #Ayd9Qg3SftU6iS8liS by darkling@mstdn.social
2025-09-27T11:48:09Z
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@futurebird My other favourite maths culture joke is the Grothendieck Prime: 57.Most people who hear it (including me, the first time) think that the joke is that Grothendieck accidentally picked a composite number as an example of a prime.Apparently, the *real* joke is that Grothendieck was famous for never, ever, using examples.
(DIR) Post #Ayd9VmIyrbezY5pcmG by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-27T11:49:05Z
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@darkling When I pointed it out to the other graders, who really just wanted to go home one guy tried to justify this by saying that "anyone experienced in math wouldn't write x like that" which might be true but what came first? Why did it matter?We re-scored the problems.
(DIR) Post #AydA0Dgdcko39uPf8K by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-27T11:54:34Z
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@Azuaron @darkling That's the biggest white lie in that story. That a teacher would give that task without wanting students to spot patterns and save time. But it's more fun to pretend that the teacher was lazy.
(DIR) Post #AydAD9Oct4vtcI9bP6 by kawa@mas.to
2025-09-27T11:56:53Z
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@futurebird Legendary caricature.
(DIR) Post #AydAzhtBwjs6UjbVwG by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-27T12:05:35Z
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@Andrew Like this:𝓍Not this:x X
(DIR) Post #AydBBQqr7MyR816PjM by KatS@chaosfem.tw
2025-09-27T12:07:45Z
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@futurebird He looks beautiful! That is the face of a deeply unreasonable man who would scowl in triumph.A colossal pain in the ass, but far from boring.
(DIR) Post #AydCzx0dvhotIVKjUu by darkling@mstdn.social
2025-09-27T12:22:32Z
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@vikxin @futurebird The tale goes that the night before his fatal duel, he was writing up notes on his ideas, and scribbling "not enough time!" in the margins.I don't know if there's [still] primary evidence for that, or if it's just entered the mythology.
(DIR) Post #AydCzyLaxIApRm8ynI by josh@squ.alid.pw
2025-09-27T12:28:09.408220Z
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@darkling @vikxin @futurebird wikipedia has a picture of the final page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89variste_Galois#/media/File%3AE._Galois_Letter.jpg
(DIR) Post #AydD7kcbs2BDC7oNEW by josh@squ.alid.pw
2025-09-27T12:29:37.682569Z
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@darkling @futurebird @vikxin it doesn't have any "not enough time" additions, but does end with "i hope someone can decode this mess"
(DIR) Post #AydEPE9xP1OLgKJ4ka by stveje@mstdn.social
2025-09-27T12:43:53Z
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@futurebird I always heard that anecdote applied to Gauss, not Galois. Of course maybe that's just more proof it's made up.
(DIR) Post #AydIQN8zspxdeXevKq by michael_w_busch@mastodon.online
2025-09-27T13:28:54Z
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@futurebird @darkling I have heard that story told about Gauss.And likewise largely apocryphal: https://www.americanscientist.org/article/gausss-day-of-reckoning
(DIR) Post #AydUARPlRAlriKfhTM by grimacing@luzeed.org
2025-09-27T15:35:07+00:00
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There is nothing less logical than human beings who blind themselves to their own illogical behavior with the worship of logic itself. Math is just a linguistic system for trying to describe the world around us in greater detail than other systems might allow. The more logical thing to do would be to recognize ones vulnerability to illogical thought and embrace the parts of that, that are not damaging while trying to find in one's self the illogical beliefs that might be harmful (including the idea that one is capable of existing only in the logical) so one can allow themselves to improve. Denying that vulnerability in ones self only stunts people in a place where they cannot adapt to new/novel changes in information. It's how we end up with people that say facts don't care about your feelings, while ignoring the facts they don't like or don't support their argument, because the only facts that matter to somebody in that state are the ones they have assimilated into their world view. Math Culture exists and it's in my opinion what makes math a worthwhile pursuit. All math is, is an often inaccurate way of modelling the world, solar system, galaxy and universe around us. It is often capable of much more precision than other linguistical models, but in some areas I would say it's worse. But it reveals to us patterns we might not otherwise have recognized using other systems (This is why early math is so tied to art and philosophy and it would probably be a great thing if we stopped trying to create a dichotomy between math and art, it doesn't exist and both fields would be severely diminished without the existence of the other). Those patterns are often a thing of beauty and understanding them to a greater extent can open up a greater appreciation for the nature of life itself if we allow ourselves to appreciate the inherent art in math. Without that, math is just a toy for people who hate the world to escape into the cold logic that they can shape in their own image to reinforce their previously held beliefs... Like any linguistic system, but potentially worse. Stripping art and philosophy from math sucks. People who do that suck. It's actually one of the first things I can spot talking to tech bros that makes it obvious that eventually they are going to say something bigoted and small minded. Math is not a way to escape the world, but to get to know it better, people trying to shrink the world to make it less scary to them should be doing something else with their time instead of poisoning STEM with their small mindedness.
(DIR) Post #AydZBggIf2wD7hosqG by djm62@beige.party
2025-09-27T16:36:44Z
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@futurebird @darkling asking people from various places how they pronounce the factorial sign "!"(Studied in England, "bang" for me)
(DIR) Post #AydkAfrTK3qzmqlTV2 by paelse@mastodon.online
2025-09-27T18:39:46Z
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@futurebird @darkling 500*1001, right? (I'm not a child but I'm not a mathematician either, so I can't resist the urge to brag about figuring it out 😊)
(DIR) Post #AydpmaiROyjybRRLjE by khleedril@cyberplace.social
2025-09-27T19:42:42Z
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@futurebird The real question is, when he had to dress for formality, like having his picture taken, how did he get all that hair under a wig?
(DIR) Post #AyeZR2Cv6VQRO4M6RE by stereo@sunbeam.city
2025-09-28T04:14:14Z
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@futurebird it's funny to me cause it's one of the more provable languages where the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is evident. there's like 3 commonly used notations for differential calculus because they all make different aspects of it easy to reason about while obscuring others. the number system itself affects which numbers are easy to do math on (quick tricks for base 10 multiplication table of 9s, for example)
(DIR) Post #Ayf1GCWLDUiku83uTo by IngaLovinde@embracing.space
2025-09-28T09:25:57Z
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@futurebird @darkling > The story about him being asked to sum all of the numbers from 1 to 1000 and finding a shortcut as a childI think this was about Gauss, not Galois?
(DIR) Post #AylytKB5k1O2Bso2fQ by llewelly@sauropods.win
2025-10-01T18:02:28Z
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@futurebird A few weeks ago I read about the mathematician George Green being mistakenly associated with a photo of a wagon maker and USA civil war soldier, George Bernard Green ... how often do this mixups of portraits and photos of mathematicians happen? ref: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/26375451.2025.2517491