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Euler's Partition Function Theory Finished

Posted by Soulskill on from the that-was-quick dept.

universegeek writes "Mathematician Ken Ono, from Emory, has solved a 250-year-old problem: how to exactly and explicitly generate partition numbers. Ono and colleagues were able to finally do this by realizing that the pattern of partition numbers is fractal (PDF). This pattern allowed them to find a finite, algebraic formula, which is like striking oil in mathematics."

117 comments

  1. It is about time by NEDHead · · Score: 3, Funny

    I was going crazy trying to figure a layout for the office.

    1. Re:It is about time by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      I was going crazy trying to figure a layout for the office.

      Easy, just build around the pizza boxes.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  2. I guess I was using the wrong tool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Maybe fdisk wasn't the right approach to solve this problem.

    1. Re:I guess I was using the wrong tool by Culture20 · · Score: 1

      Maybe fdisk wasn't the right approach to solve this problem.

      No one reads at 0 any more? Anonymous Coward made a funny!

    2. Re:I guess I was using the wrong tool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was an obvious joke, and overall quite 'meh'

    3. Re:I guess I was using the wrong tool by Bigjeff5 · · Score: 1

      It's not that nobody ready it, it's that it wasn't that funny, and I am definitely a member of the target audience for the joke.

      It got a "meh" from me, whereas the "Ono - Yoko - Apolo - Ohno" thread above produced a light chuckle.

      --
      Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
  3. Re:Mr. Ono... by Locke2005 · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    I was thinking more of Apollo Ono, but you're right -- Yoko would be much better at partitioning, seeing as how she broke up the Beatles and all...

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  4. Re:Mr. Ono... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Was first post that important?

  5. Fractals are sexy by Suki+I · · Score: 4, Funny

    Fractals are the mathematical thingie that turn me on the most in all of mathematics. The paisley pattern is natures tribute to the fractal, when executed correctly. Fractals make me hot, they really turn me on. Striking oil, even hotter.

    --
    Home of The Suki Series
    1. Re:Fractals are sexy by Antisyzygy · · Score: 1

      ASL?

      --
      That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
    2. Re:Fractals are sexy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Paizley did you say? Quite hot indeed.

    3. Re:Fractals are sexy by Suki+I · · Score: 1

      ROFL, read the profile ;)

      --
      Home of The Suki Series
    4. Re:Fractals are sexy by Suki+I · · Score: 1

      Paizley did you say? Quite hot indeed.

      ;)

      --
      Home of The Suki Series
    5. Re:Fractals are sexy by Antisyzygy · · Score: 1

      Just being funny. Im married myself.

      --
      That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
    6. Re:Fractals are sexy by Suki+I · · Score: 1

      I will be too, when we get done having all this engagement fun ;)

      --
      Home of The Suki Series
    7. Re:Fractals are sexy by Sulphur · · Score: 1

      Striking oil, even hotter.

      Especially Mathematic Oil.

    8. Re:Fractals are sexy by certron · · Score: 1

      What, no one is making the obvious oil / Euler joke? Tough crowd.

      --

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  6. In English by jgtg32a · · Score: 1

    So what does this mean and what does this give us in practical applications?

    1. Re:In English by masterwit · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So what does this mean and what does this give us in practical applications?

      A new textbook version for another $150.00.

      --
      We should start a new Slashdot and return control to the geeks. It actually wouldn't be that hard to get some users to
    2. Re:In English by martin-boundary · · Score: 5, Informative
      Suppose you have a large amount of data, and you've turned it into a whole lot of integers. You might not want to store the integers each in a full byte/word/double word, as you'd be wasting a lot of memory that way.

      So you come up with a scheme where small integers are stored in a slot that only takes up the number of bits that they actually need. For example, the number 5 can be stored in 3 bits or more, and the number 3 can be stored in two bits or more, which is a far cry from the "standard" size of 64 bits per integer used on many computers these days.

      The Euler partition function tells you in how many ways you can split 64 bits up into differently sized slots, which is great if you want to design flexible encoding schemes that make good use of those 64 bits.

    3. Re:In English by Longjmp · · Score: 2

      So, what you are saying is, I could use a 64bit int, fill it up with "1"s and I would know I have stored exactly 32 "3"s...

      Sorry, couldn't resist ;-)

      --
      There are fewer illiterates than people who can't read.
    4. Re:In English by AchilleTalon · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Why should it gives us any practical applications right now or tomorrow? Do you know Boole was considered wasting his time when he put together the fundation of the boolean algebra which is a cornerstone of the logical circuitry? Do you know Maxwell was also considered wasting his time working on the unification of electrical and magnetic forces? Do you know Faraday was asked what the heck the electricity was for?

      All pratical things begin with someone dreaming and working on useless things otherwise these discoveries wouldn't have been done if only practical purpose and necessity was the rule. I'm tired reading peoples always asking what it's for as if everything should have a pratical usage right away. We are talking about the foundations of reasoning here, we are talking about mathematics, not about engineering in case you didn't notice.

      --
      Achille Talon
      Hop!
    5. Re:In English by X0563511 · · Score: 1

      Welcome to 2011, where instant gratification is 'everything' for better (or most likely) for worse.

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    6. Re:In English by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      its like subnetting?

    7. Re:In English by hitmark · · Score: 1

      And this hunt for practical uses asap is what basically killed blue sky research in our post cold war world.

      If it can not be packaged and sold for a profit 24 hours after it is discovered, it is ignored as worthless.

      Oh, and was not the laser considered a usless exercise in physics once? The net of today would be very different without it...

      --
      comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
    8. Re:In English by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well, in statistics it's pretty common to fit models to partitions of data, and the partitioning process gets ugly when the data set is large (in terms of classes of data, not in terms of the number of points in the data.) And translating from partition numbers to actual partitions is trivial. Speaking as a statistician who only deals with number theory on the (rare) occasions that it's directly relevant to my work, I have to say that the existing partitioning algorithms, although they work, strike me as inelegant, and I'd be happy to have something cleaner that can deal with an arbitrarily large number of classes of data in "O(something small)" time. I can see this speeding up model selection problems at least somewhat, although most of the computational expense will still be in actually fitting the models and calculating the relevant performance criteria.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    9. Re:In English by SoVeryTired · · Score: 2

      There's a brilliant historical example of this. G.H. Hardy, one of the foremost mathematicians of his day, once gave number theory and general relativity as examples of mathematical disciplines that were interesting in their own right, but which were unlikely to ever produce anything useful. Nowadays, relativity underpins the GPS system, and number theory provides the basis for a large amount of cryptography.

      It just goes to show that you never can tell...

      --
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    10. Re:In English by paxcoder · · Score: 1

      "flexible encoding schemes that make good use of those 64 bits." -- oh? do tell.

    11. Re:In English by martin-boundary · · Score: 4, Informative
      There's a nice book on variable length encoding schemes by David Salomon. What I was thinking of was Anh and Moffat's Simple9 code (couldn't find a direct link), which goes like this:

      Suppose you have 32 bits to play with, and you reserve 4 bits for bookkeeping, then you have 28 bits available for data. In Simple9, you partition the 28 bits in 9 equal sized slots (9 fits in 4 bits).

      28 x 1 bit -> 28 numbers in the range 0-1
      14 x 2 bit -> 14 numbers in the range 0-3
      9 x 3 bit -> 9 numbers in the range 0-7
      7 x 4 bit -> 7 numbers in the range 0-15
      5 x 5 bit -> 5 numbers in the range 0-31
      4 x 7 bit -> 4 numbers in the range 0-127
      3 x 9 bit -> 3 numbers in the range 0-511
      2 x 14 bit -> 2 numbers in the range 0-16383
      1 x 28 bit -> 1 number in the range 0-268435455
      ----
      9 different encodings -> fits in 4 bookkeeping bits.

      This isn't space optimal, but it's not bad because 28 is divisible without remainder in nearly all of the cases. Moreover, it's fast to decode because it's just bit masks, and it offers localized random access whereas a lot of more efficient codes can only extract the data in order.

      However, the partition function tells us how to fill the slots exactly! So in principle, if we reserve B bookkeeping bits for a number which describes a partion of the R = 64 - B remaining databits, then we should be able to decode those R bits with a template which is a function of the value stored in B. So, take a list of Euler partition numbers, compute the log2 of the values of p(R), calling it B, then see when R + B = 64.

      For example, with R = 47, p(R) = 105558 which fits in B = 17 bits. So you can encode 105558 different partitions exactly in 47 bits, and use 17 bits to identify the actual partition being used.

      Anyway, this is getting too long for slashdot :)

    12. Re:In English by quarterbuck · · Score: 1

      I think (and according to the article) this is a different partitioning algorithm they are talking about. Here partitioning represents a way of representing a number as a sum of other positive numbers. I can't see how this is relevant to statistics - this seems to be a pure number theory problem. Though, I suspect someone somewhere will connect this to cryptography or something. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_(number_theory)

      --
      http://slashdot.org/submission/1062723/Cheap-mobile-data-plan?art_pos=2
    13. Re:In English by minstrelmike · · Score: 1

      Half of science is useless (but we never know which half until many centuries later. Far more than half of most other human endeavors are useless so science/math still is our best option.

    14. Re:In English by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 1

      If you have a set of k elements, and you know the set of all sequences (k_1, ..., k_m) such that k_1 + ... + k_m = k for all integers m between 1 and k, then it's pretty easy to go from that to the set of all partitions of the set. Finding the partition function of the size of the set is the first step in the set-partitioning algorithms I know of; there may be other ways to do it, of course, but I don't know what they are.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    15. Re:In English by Bigjeff5 · · Score: 2

      No, it's exactly the same thing. It just looks different because in mathematics you aren't partitioning a pie, you are partitioning a number.

      For example, the number 3 has the following positive integer partitions:

      3
      2+1
      1+1+1

      You can also define your partition in a decimal fraction if you wanted, in which case you would have an almost infinite number of partitions. It's basically just breaking a number up into related (but not necessarily equal) portions. The relation is determined by the smallest allowed unit (in the example above, a positive integer). This is how any non-random form of partitioning, mathematical in nature or not, works.

      I frankly have a very hard time believing that the data partitions created for statistical modeling are going to be created at random, so the algorithm in TFA can almost certainly apply.

      Partitions are a very elementary mathematical principle and therefore have a very wide range of applications. The problem with calculating them has always been similar to prime numbers (another elementary principle with very broad applications). "Solving" the partition problem is like writing an algorithm that can reliably and precisely generate prime numbers. It's huge.

      --
      Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
    16. Re:In English by aquila.solo · · Score: 1

      ...was not the laser considered a usless exercise in physics once? The net of today would be very different without it...

      Right, there wouldn't be any Youtube videos of cats chasing the little red dot from a laser pointer!~

    17. Re:In English by kwerle · · Score: 1

      Pfft. Who uses that stuff, anyway? Hardy was right.

  7. Re:Mr. Ono... by djlemma · · Score: 2

    I think Apolo Anton spells his last name "Ohno" anyway..

  8. Ageism strikes again by Dr.+Gamera · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, Ono can't win the Fields medal for it -- he's too old. (Born in 1968; you can't win the Fields medal after 40.)

    1. Re:Ageism strikes again by universegeek · · Score: 1

      Ono is one of 5 people responsible though, and the others were all postdocs (I think), so it's not out of the question for the work to lead to a Fields medal for someone.

    2. Re:Ageism strikes again by MarkRose · · Score: 5, Funny

      He's too old? Is it time to start writing his eulergy?

      --
      Be relentless!
    3. Re:Ageism strikes again by circletimessquare · · Score: 2

      but it's good news about ageism in another way: it has been said that if you don't make a contribution to mathematics by age 40, you never will (all the great discoveries in mathematics are by young mathematicians)

      http://www.slate.com/id/2082960/

      so ono at least proves that geezer mathematicians can still do some groundbreaking stuff

      --
      intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    4. Re:Ageism strikes again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The age limit has nothing to do with ageism. When the medal was first given out they decided not to give it to some established mathematician for prior work as there would have been 100's of candidates. They didn't want the senior figures in the field just to sit around giving medals to themselves.

    5. Re:Ageism strikes again by adavies42 · · Score: 1

      time to issue another fields plaque ?

      --
      Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
      -kfg
    6. Re:Ageism strikes again by ancienthart · · Score: 1

      Which must be frustrating for him. As human life-span increases and anti-senescence treatments are found, how long before people give up on the idea that only young people can have good ideas?

  9. A Partician is: by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From the article:
    "a partition is a way of representing a natural number n as the sum of natural numbers (ie. for n = 3, we have three partitions, 3, 2 + 1, and 1 + 1 + 1, independent of order). Thus, the partition function, p(n), represents the number of possible partitions of n. So, p(3) = 3, p(4) = 5 (for n = 4, we have: 4, 3 + 1, 2 + 2, 2 + 1 + 1, 1 + 1 + 1 + 1) , etc.."

    Very interesting read.

    1. Re:A Partician is: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      ...Somebody who throws killer parties?

    2. Re:A Partician is: by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      Also, somebody who is not a plebiean.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    3. Re:A Partician is: by guyminuslife · · Score: 2

      I remember doing some stuff like that for Project Euler. Man, if only I'd known there was an algebraic solution!

      --
      I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
    4. Re:A Partician is: by Selfbain · · Score: 1

      I thought he meant this guy.

      --
      Well, it has never been successfully tested.
    5. Re:A Partician is: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the explaination.

    6. Re:A Partician is: by glwtta · · Score: 1

      A Partician is:

      A Roman nobleman? No, wait...

      --
      sic transit gloria mundi
    7. Re:A Partician is: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Attention, illiterate fucktard: it's spelled 'partition', as you can see *in the very text you quoted*. How could anyone possibly be this fucking stupid and live? Do you get lost in your pants when you get dressed in the morning?

      Unfortunately, your condition is probably incurable. I prescribe suicide, preferably by self-cannibalism. Have a nice day.

    8. Re:A Partician is: by gangien · · Score: 1

      too bad they turned off public profiles.. but here

    9. Re:A Partician is: by warrax_666 · · Score: 2

      A patrician is:

      Vetinari

      Bitch.

      --
      HAND.
    10. Re:A Partician is: by parlancex · · Score: 1

      So if we have a way to generate exact partition numbers, does any of this mean there might be an efficient way to find the partition number of for a value where each part is equal to the others? There's potential for an easier way to find prime numbers here.

  10. Re:Mr. Ono... by Locke2005 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ohno, I sure screwed that one up!

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  11. Re:Paisley? Eh... Romanesco! by Suki+I · · Score: 0

    paisley pattern?

    Not sure what you're thinking of...

    Not my fault that you are doing it wrong. ;)

    --
    Home of The Suki Series
  12. Hooo!EEEE! by rueger · · Score: 0

    Wow! Now I have something to talk about over brewskis between periods while we watch the Sabres/Islanders game tonight!

    Good thing, 'cause the economic impact of Hu Jintao's visit had pretty been hashed out already.

    --
    Three Squirrels
    1. Re:Hooo!EEEE! by X0563511 · · Score: 1

      You know, some of us actually enjoy having meaningful discussions with others.

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    2. Re:Hooo!EEEE! by rueger · · Score: 1

      I'll have you know, some of my best friends are mathematicians!

      --
      Three Squirrels
  13. Boy... by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This pattern allowed them to find a finite, algebraic formula...

    Yeah, but looking at the paper, still not that simple. Eventually someone will be able to program it into a function and I'll be able to call it in Matlab, but until then, I'd still be worried about making calculation errors. On the other hand, that may be saying more about my calculation skills than about the work...

    --
    That is all.
  14. You're all missing the real story here by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    That being the blog author, Sarah Kavassalis, is insanely hot. I can't even tell what this theory means anyway.

    --
    I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
    1. Re:You're all missing the real story here by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 0

      That's why she's hot.

      --
      My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
    2. Re:You're all missing the real story here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are correct sir. I propose we setup some sort of Kavassalis worship site.

    3. Re:You're all missing the real story here by universegeek · · Score: 0

      I've seen her pictures on facebook, they are real.

    4. Re:You're all missing the real story here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Met her once,(met is maybe an overstatement-I stood by while my boss met and chatted with her) they looked real enough to me.

    5. Re:You're all missing the real story here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, low standards there... Then again this is Slashdot.

    6. Re:You're all missing the real story here by Fujisawa+Sensei · · Score: 1

      Only pretentious twits actually care.

      --
      If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
    7. Re:You're all missing the real story here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Gotta have standards. Looks are important to me, not just brains.

    8. Re:You're all missing the real story here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good to know, Sarah ;)

    9. Re:You're all missing the real story here by universegeek · · Score: 1

      Muahahahah!

    10. Re:You're all missing the real story here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your username was a giveaway. ;)

    11. Re:You're all missing the real story here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're what, a 34DD? Must be damned hard finding bras.

    12. Re:You're all missing the real story here by universegeek · · Score: 1

      Oh I was actually kidding there, I don't have lady parts.

    13. Re:You're all missing the real story here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This post would indicate otherwise... why else would you refer to your blog with "I"? Don't be bashful now. :-)

    14. Re:You're all missing the real story here by universegeek · · Score: 1

      Dude, I just read her blog (because I know her), I can bring links that I didn't actually create myself. I even reference people to Google sometimes and I'm pretty sure I have nothing to do with that.

    15. Re:You're all missing the real story here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Going to take a bet and say your name is Vlad.

    16. Re:You're all missing the real story here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Character Stats:

      Name: Vladimir S. Mashkevich
      Institution: Queens College, New York
      Status: Postdoctoral Fellow

      Special Skills: Tries to run a gravity collaboration website http://gravitygeek.com/

      In short, you're actually this guy http://arxiv.org/find/quant-ph/1/au:+Mashkevich_V/0/1/0/all/0/1 right?

    17. Re:You're all missing the real story here by universegeek · · Score: 1

      WTF is that from?

    18. Re:You're all missing the real story here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://picasaweb.google.com/sarah.kavassalis/SummerInToronto#5510953680802497762

      nice :)

  15. Fractal Euler by Suki+I · · Score: 1

    I was going crazy trying to figure a layout for the office.

    I thought it was Fractal Euler's day off? Just relax.

    --
    Home of The Suki Series
  16. Okay by kryliss · · Score: 1

    Sooooo. Not being an uber math geek.... what the hell is this good for?

    --
    --- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
    1. Re:Okay by cinderellamanson · · Score: 0

      um, p==np and slashdot got trolled.

      --
      Hey buddy, can i bum a karma? ~}CinderellaManson{~
    2. Re:Okay by kylemonger · · Score: 1

      Solving problems like this (#P problems that is) efficiently always involves counting solutions without actually enumerating them. Results like this might give insight into how to solve other #P problems or maybe even an efficient solution to a #P-complete problem, which would give us P=NP. Heady stuff, actually.

  17. Re:Mr. Ono... by djlemma · · Score: 1

    Not really, other than my assumption that somebody would be making that stupid joke so it might as well be me. Didn't realize I had 'first post' until later. So... score? :)

    Also, I'm geeky, but not geeky enough to understand all the math involved in this article. I just want to be able to contribute in some small way. Or something.

  18. Ken Ono is a great guy by GlobalEcho · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Couldn't happen to a harder-working guy BTW, or a nicer one. I'll never forget him desperately writing the final draft of his wedding vows on the day of the ceremony.

    1. Re:Ken Ono is a great guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This work was actually sponsored by Fry's Electronics!

    2. Re:Ken Ono is a great guy by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 2

      His wife will be so glad to hear that he spent so much time on them >_>

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    3. Re:Ken Ono is a great guy by The_mad_linguist · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I think he fiddled with the margins and put them at 2.1 spacing to reach the page count, too.

  19. pics by residue · · Score: 0

    Pics or it didn't happen!

  20. Striking oil? by Urban+Garlic · · Score: 2

    Surely you meant, "striking Eul".

    HTH.

    --
    2*3*3*3*3*11*251
  21. Striking oil? by slushdork · · Score: 1
    Ha! Shouldn't that be "striking Eul(er) in mathematics"?

    Thang you, thang you, I'll be here all week...

  22. Who solved it? by Stregano · · Score: 1

    We say Ono, but he played a big part in it. Was one of the people in the group a janitor who felt he was smarter than everybody else and then walked in and solved the equation? I am pretty sure that is exactly how it went down. And the janitor's friend is Ben Affleck. I have no clue why Ben Affleck is friends with a janitor, but he is

    --
    The world is how you make it
    1. Re:Who solved it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So Ono is secretly Robin Williams?

  23. I don't care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    how to exactly and explicitly generate partition numbers.

    I don't care, grub still sucks.

  24. I believe you mean 'paTRician'... by denzacar · · Score: 1

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrician

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
    1. Re:I believe you mean 'paTRician'... by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      *sigh* *whoosh* Why do you think I intentionally misspelled "plebeian"?

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  25. Better Link by GlobalEcho · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here is a link that explains the whole discovery process much better:

    http://esciencecommons.blogspot.com/2011/01/new-theories-reveal-nature-of-numbers.html

  26. Re:Mr. Ono... by tprox · · Score: 1

    It's like striking oil on Slashdot!

  27. But the important question is... by youn · · Score: 1

    Does the solution fit in the margin? (I know different problem but it's ok :)

    --
    Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that :p
  28. Re:Mr. Ono... by djlemma · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think you need to APOLOgize..


    aaaand I can just hear my slashdot karma crashing down. :)

  29. Re:Paisley? Eh... Romanesco! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the Romanesco broccoli... aye, there's some proper fractal food.

    But eating it takes forever.

  30. Common mispronounciation by sackvillian · · Score: 1

    He's too old? Is it time to start writing his eulergy?

    Huh, I don't get it. The hell is an oil-er-gy?

    I'm also not clear on why Ken Ono would be described as hitting good ol' Eul just for completing a theory of his:

    ...which is like striking oil in mathematics."

    --
    Hey mate, spare a sig?
  31. They need to speak more clearly by Squiffy · · Score: 1

    Why must they repeatedly conflate partitions, partition counts, and sequences of partition counts? I can't tell what they're actually saying. First the article reads, "To be slightly more technical, from Ken Ono and Kathrin Bringman, 'A partition of a non-negative integer n is a non-increasing sequence of positive integers whose sum is n.' The concept is straight forward, but how to obtain these partition numbers, in general, is actually no trivial matter."

    Then later, "...a finite, algebraic formula for partition numbers thanks to the discovering that partitions are fractal." Well do they mean partitions are fractal, or partition counts are fractal?

    Another article at eScienceCommons (another post here links to it) quotes Ono: “We prove that partition numbers are ‘fractal’ for every prime." How can a number be fractal? Or does he mean the sequence over primes is fractal? WTF?

    Ken Ono says in the press release, "I can take any number, plug it into P, and instantly calculate the partitions of that number." Does he mean the partitions themselves or the partition count?

    You'd think detail-oriented professionals would be more precise in their wording.

    1. Re:They need to speak more clearly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wording is decoration. Mathematics is exact.

    2. Re:They need to speak more clearly by voutasaurus · · Score: 2

      I imagine most mathematicians would argue that anything that can be said in a single sentence in isolation is imprecise enough that they don't really care. I imagine the published paper will be more precise, and I encourage you to read it if you are interested in specifics. Otherwise, the point of the article is that fractals are useful, number theory has interesting and unsolved problems, and that mathematics requires more than sitting at a desk calculating things (as vague as these ideas might be).

  32. Ah, you know... by denzacar · · Score: 1

    Never ascribe to malice... and all that.

    Partician-plebiean vs patrician-plebeian is a bit of a too subtle a joke for Slashdot.
    Now, had you said something like "In Soviet Russia all particians are communist particians" or "I for one welcome our new partician overlords..."

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
  33. ASL is a sign of... by tepples · · Score: 1

    Nope, haven't had a reason to learn it; no deaf people in the family.

  34. ipv6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    can someone confirm this has ipv6 applications?

  35. Re:Mr. Ono... by aquila.solo · · Score: 1

    In this case, wouldn't it be striking "Eul?"