In the April 2003 settlement of postbubble fraud charges, the biggest Wall Street firms agreed to cough up $432.5 million to fund "independent" research. Mandelbrot then makes the distinction between two kinds of research. One is the kind of research where analysts study a publicly traded company, and then give recommendations to buy, sell or hold. The other kind is fundamental economic research.
Mandelbrot then suggests that at least five percent of the settlement money be directed toward fundamental research. He does not say that we should look for a way to predict the markets with absolute certainty - that would be impossible, as many here have redundantly pointed out. (He would probably be insulted to know that so many here think that's what he advocated. He's not stupid, you know.)
He's talking about giving a boost to the kind of fundamental economic research that's already taking place. Stuff like risk management, for example. If you read the article, maybe you noticed that in the beginning he clearly gave examples of what's wrong with our present models in risk management.
Given a complex function, a pole is just a point where the function is not defined (usually because something goes to infinity).
Sorry to reply again, but this one still needs clearing. Pole is always a singularity. In fact an analytic function may have two different kinds of singularities: poles and essential singularities. Poles are those singularities that can be removed by multiplying the function with a polynomial of a high enough degree. For example, 1/(1-z) is analytic everywhere except at z = 1, where it has a simple pole. It can be removed by multiplying the function by 1-z. Any pole that can be removed with a polynomial of first degree is called simple.
Q: What is very old, used by farmers, and obeys the fundamental theorem of arithmetic? A: An antique tractorisation domain.
You missed this one. The joke is referring to unique factorisation domains. For example, the integers is a unique factorisation domain. 12=2*2*3, 15=3*5... You know what it means. Of course, changing the order of the factors doesn't count as a different factorisation.
What would be really important is to prove the Reimann Hypothesis. That would tell us a lot about the distribution of primes.
Actually that's the Riemann hypothesis, but your mistake seems to be a common misspelling, so don't feel too bad.
It would be nice to know that the Riemann Hypothesis is true. You see the prime counting function pi(x) (= number of primes less than or equal to x) can be approximated with the integral Li(x) = integral from 0 to x of 1/log(t) dt. The Riemann hypothesis is equivalent to saying that the deviation of pi(x) from Li(x) is O(sqrt(x)log(x)) (that's the big-oh symbol). That is
pi(x) = Li(x) + O(sqrt(x)log(x)).
The failure of the Riemann hypothesis would create havoc in the distribution of prime numbers.
Q: What is often used by Canadians to help solve certain differential equations? A: the Lacrosse transform.
The is a technique that makes certain differential equations a lot easier to solve - essentially you take a complicated D.E., substitute certain things in place of any derivatives you see by looking them up in a table, then solve the resulting equation using normal algebra, and finally transform it back also by looking up things in a table.
The joke is referring to the Laplace transform. There is no Lacrosse transform.
Q: Who knows everything there is to be known about vector analysis? A: The Oracle of del phi!
Hmmmm, I don't get this one. Sorry. Anyone?
The del operator is fundamental in vector calculus. You can define the gradient, curl, divergence and the Laplacian with it. It's also known as nabla.
So, they just had to rely on the method of steepest descents.
A way to find the nearest local minimum of a function - works whenever the function is smooth near that minimum.
No. You're talking about the gradient descent method. The method of steepest descent is a way to find the asymptotic series of a function. I know Weisstein's Mathworld agrees with you, but check their references on that page. Arfken and Morse, Feshbach agree with me! I know because I've been studying those two books on this very subject the whole evening before I checked Slashdot. I was mightily surprised to see the method's name mentioned here, believe me.
Microsoft has also, indirectly, aided a lawsuit that could hurt Linux. On May 19th, it said that it had licensed the rights to Unix technologies from SCO Group, a small software firm. Earlier this year, SCO sued IBM, which has made a big commitment to Linux, seeking damages of at least $1 billion... The lawsuit had seemed to be a ham-fisted attempt by SCO to get itself bought, or bought off, by Big Blue. But the deal with Microsoft lends credence to SCO's claims and helps it financially to press them.
How does Microsoft licensing SCO technologies give SCO's lawsuit any credence. Everyone knows MS will do anything it can to hurt Linux. Is there really someone out there going "Hmm, Microsoft licensed SCO's technology, ergo, SCO has a valid case." I just have a hard time believing that.
"While Paramount executives wouldn't comment on specifics of the marketing campaign, suffice it to say that this will be the largest marketing campaign that the home video division has ever undertaken, second only to 'The Godfather' box set release, one Paramount executive said."
Why do they need to go with such a huge ad campaign? They would sell these discs as fast as they can make 'em even with a moderate campaign. They're wasting their money! Does anyone think people need to be persuaded to buy Indy movies? I don't understand Hollywood.
In my opinion there are just as cool and wonderful phones offered by Ericsson's rivals Nokia, Siemens and Motorola (at least here in Europe). Yet Slashdot keeps posting this adulation crap about a single phone from Ericsson. Nokia, for example, released something like 12 new phones a week or two ago. Where's the story about those?
At least make a section for the P800 so I can block it from the front page.
"To do any less thorough of a search is to defeat the purpose of the search."
And why is that? The purpose of the search is to prevent cheating. Catching all cheaters isn't necessary to achieve that. It's enough if the students know that some sort of efficient checking will be done.
Slashdot Mirror
Let me recap Mandelbrot's point here.
In the April 2003 settlement of postbubble fraud charges, the biggest Wall Street firms agreed to cough up $432.5 million to fund "independent" research. Mandelbrot then makes the distinction between two kinds of research. One is the kind of research where analysts study a publicly traded company, and then give recommendations to buy, sell or hold. The other kind is fundamental economic research.
Mandelbrot then suggests that at least five percent of the settlement money be directed toward fundamental research. He does not say that we should look for a way to predict the markets with absolute certainty - that would be impossible, as many here have redundantly pointed out. (He would probably be insulted to know that so many here think that's what he advocated. He's not stupid, you know.)
He's talking about giving a boost to the kind of fundamental economic research that's already taking place. Stuff like risk management, for example. If you read the article, maybe you noticed that in the beginning he clearly gave examples of what's wrong with our present models in risk management.
The correct spelling is "Riemann", not "Reimann".
Simply for your information.
Sorry to reply again, but this one still needs clearing. Pole is always a singularity. In fact an analytic function may have two different kinds of singularities: poles and essential singularities. Poles are those singularities that can be removed by multiplying the function with a polynomial of a high enough degree. For example, 1/(1-z) is analytic everywhere except at z = 1, where it has a simple pole. It can be removed by multiplying the function by 1-z. Any pole that can be removed with a polynomial of first degree is called simple.
Q: What is very old, used by farmers, and obeys the fundamental theorem of arithmetic?
A: An antique tractorisation domain.
You missed this one. The joke is referring to unique factorisation domains. For example, the integers is a unique factorisation domain. 12=2*2*3, 15=3*5... You know what it means. Of course, changing the order of the factors doesn't count as a different factorisation.
What would be really important is to prove the Reimann Hypothesis. That would tell us a lot about the distribution of primes.
Actually that's the Riemann hypothesis, but your mistake seems to be a common misspelling, so don't feel too bad.
It would be nice to know that the Riemann Hypothesis is true. You see the prime counting function pi(x) (= number of primes less than or equal to x) can be approximated with the integral Li(x) = integral from 0 to x of 1/log(t) dt. The Riemann hypothesis is equivalent to saying that the deviation of pi(x) from Li(x) is O(sqrt(x)log(x)) (that's the big-oh symbol). That is
pi(x) = Li(x) + O(sqrt(x)log(x)).
The failure of the Riemann hypothesis would create havoc in the distribution of prime numbers.
The joke is referring to the Laplace transform. There is no Lacrosse transform.
The del operator is fundamental in vector calculus. You can define the gradient, curl, divergence and the Laplacian with it. It's also known as nabla.
No. You're talking about the gradient descent method. The method of steepest descent is a way to find the asymptotic series of a function. I know Weisstein's Mathworld agrees with you, but check their references on that page. Arfken and Morse, Feshbach agree with me! I know because I've been studying those two books on this very subject the whole evening before I checked Slashdot. I was mightily surprised to see the method's name mentioned here, believe me.
How does Microsoft licensing SCO technologies give SCO's lawsuit any credence. Everyone knows MS will do anything it can to hurt Linux. Is there really someone out there going "Hmm, Microsoft licensed SCO's technology, ergo, SCO has a valid case." I just have a hard time believing that.
Why do they need to go with such a huge ad campaign? They would sell these discs as fast as they can make 'em even with a moderate campaign. They're wasting their money! Does anyone think people need to be persuaded to buy Indy movies? I don't understand Hollywood.
Did you know they released the sources to the fan community? It's already been ported to Linux and FreeBSD too. Go here and relive the magic!
Did you know they released the sources to the fan community? It's already been ported to Linux and FreeBSD too. Go here and relive the magic!
In my opinion there are just as cool and wonderful phones offered by Ericsson's rivals Nokia, Siemens and Motorola (at least here in Europe). Yet Slashdot keeps posting this adulation crap about a single phone from Ericsson. Nokia, for example, released something like 12 new phones a week or two ago. Where's the story about those?
At least make a section for the P800 so I can block it from the front page.
Thank you! I always wondered that.
What is a No Prize, anyway? Does it mean you win nothing? Is it a wordplay of some kind? Could someone explain this, please?
Aaahhaahahhhaaaa! That must be the funniest typo on Slashdot ever. Don't you mean posthumous.
And why is that? The purpose of the search is to prevent cheating. Catching all cheaters isn't necessary to achieve that. It's enough if the students know that some sort of efficient checking will be done.