Comments on: Wanted: Better Wikipedia coverage of theoretical computer science

By: grad student

grad student — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 03:23:03 +0000

I don’t like wiki because of no easy way of managing it and making it something that one would really reference. I prefer knol (knol.google.com) since it gives the possibility of having a reference source. I can start a entry for say propositional proof complexity, let people contribute to it and review the contributions.

By: null

null — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 19:04:42 +0000

I see many classes having a Wikipedia article assignments; you might want to give it a try.

By: Edward Vielmetti

Edward Vielmetti — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 03:30:18 +0000

I’m staring at the Conductance entry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conductance_(probability)

because I heard that word for the first time in a talk that Michael Mahoney gave at U Mich as applied to social networks. I did a few edits to cross-link it in the direction of the sociology measures I’m familiar with, and would welcome any extra words or paragraphs.

By: asdf

asdf — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:40:52 +0000

Besides David Eppstein, Vaughan Pratt is another well-known CS theorist who edits WP regularly.

By: mitchell porter

mitchell porter — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:17:39 +0000

wolfgang - can I state an opinion? It looks appalling; another fine contribution to the genre of obscuring the meanings of things for the sake of drawing half-baked analogies. You can see this most clearly in action on pages 5 to 6, where after constructing the great analogy we notice that, um, sometimes the outcome of the measurement is the exact opposite of the proposition it supposedly represents. But oh well, this just means that “the truth values of decidable propositions found in quantum experiments do not necessarily have to be the same as the ones derived by classical logic.” Excuse me while I stick my finger down my throat! Congratulations Anton Zeilinger et al, you have discovered the art of redefining your concepts as you go, so you can keep using the same words even when they should no longer apply. All you have to do is call it “quantum decidability” and you’ll be able to get away with anything. It should at least be worth a New Scientist cover story.

By: wolfgang

wolfgang — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:14:10 +0000

off topic:

Scott,

what do you think about this paper
arxiv.org/abs/0811.4542 ?

Anton Zeilinger et al. claims that “Our results support the view that quantum randomness is irreducible and a manifestation of mathematical undecidability.”

By: Piotrus

Piotrus — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:34:54 +0000

Re: critic, comment #53: Why we cannot compare attitudes of social and natural scientists? Science and academia are similar, and usually, social science attitude to technology is much more guarded than that of natural science.

By: Cody

Cody — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:29:36 +0000

Yes John A., I am aware that people are very adamant about some silly beliefs, and thats where it becomes so important that we are good at teaching these things. To unconvince the believers (of \neq) requires enormous quantities of patience and creativity. (I have spent a lot of time discussing religious beliefs with fundamentalist christians, so I think I can relate to the struggle.) The key advantage to 0.999… = 1 is that there exists many formal proofs to show it, and none to contradict it. I’ve also dealt with people who are unsatisfied with mathematical proof, but you just have to keep helping them dig through their (incorrect) intuition until you get to the source of their discomfort. I didn’t say it was easy, but for math and hard science it is far easier than say social sciences, or the humanities—and for all the effort it costs, any payoff seems much more beneficial than the result of ignoring the problem.

By: John Armstrong

John Armstrong — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:36:06 +0000

Additionally, the more logical a subject (such as mathematics), the less likely it will lead to disputes with the uninformed.

You’ve never tried to hold forth on 0.999… = 1, or to convince a relativity denialist, I see.

By: Evan Jeffrey

Evan Jeffrey — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:59:46 +0000

@John Sidles My vote for the publication deluge is hell. I have pretty much given up on publications as a way to stay current. A lot of people try to use journal clubs to reduce the magnitude of the task, but I don’t find this particularly effective, either. Going to conferences is the best way I have to keep current in specific fields. When I have a specific question or idea I need to research, then I go to the literature. Usually this is for something well outside of my field. Then I am usually confronted by an avalanche of very current papers which I have to slowly work my way back to something that does not assume so much domain knowledge it makes no sense to me.