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Distributed.net Finds Optimal 25-Mark Golomb Ruler
kpearson writes "Distributed.net's 8-year-old OGR-25 distributed computing project has just proven conclusively that the predicted shortest 25-mark Golomb ruler is optimal. 'The total length of the ruler is 480, with marks at positions: 0 12 29 39 72 91 146 157 160 161 166 191 207 214 258 290 316 354 372 394 396 431 459 467 480. (This ruler may alternatively be expressed in terms of the distance between those positions, which is how dnetc displays them: 12-17-10-33-19-...).' 124,387 people participated in the project and two people found the shortest ruler, one on October 10, 2007 and the other on March 24, 2008."
Does this mean the optimum ruler is not Bush?
Touche, although in this reply you have somewhat contradicted your aim. Catch 22 I guess. Everyone loves an annoying cunt anyway.
"Yes, but only if you make certain assumptions. "
Actually, many issues in math disappear once you take math away from the mathematicians for a second and go back to being a normal human being, if you draw a triangle on a flat piece of paper, and then map that paper around a sphere, notice how when you bend the surface, the geometry changes (i.e. euclidean vs reimann, etc, etc).
The way math has been conceived and taught to us is divorced from the world, many simple observations about the world clear up a lot of jargonistic bullshit that mathematicians, unfortunately, love to come up with. I'm sure there are others out there that want to bring math back down into the real world away from excessive abstraction and the "Formalisms"
Since mathematics has really become a cult in a way to many, but the truth is if you look at simple observations about life, things like needing "formalism" or that math is the only way to truth is bs. Life has existed without any agelbra or knowing any abstract, it is capable of navigation, self-organizaiton, and ultimately thought... so I have some real issues with many in the math community who think they know wtf they are doing.