The Mathematician: 14th October 2025
Published 14th October 2025
🔬 Recent Research
An enough week (blog.mitrichev.ch). Overview of F problem on sorted arrays, randomized vs deterministic splitting, and DP-based analysis on tree substructures
Researchers Discover the Optimal Way To Optimize (quantamagazine.org). Dantzig’s simplex method improved by Bach and Huiberts via more randomness; polynomial-time guarantees for optimization under constraints
Rising on arXiv - 2025-10-10 (blog.rinesi.com). Overview of Lindbladians, zero-knowledge proofs, and the Algonauts 2025 Challenge with brain data and multimodal perception notes
🧩 Puzzles & Recreations
Change ringing: extensions to place notation (hunsley.io). Explores extending place notation with a new ; operator for rotational symmetry, plus examples in Bristol Major, Double Norwich CBM, and other double methods
Basketball trivia, editing distances, and derangement (leancrew.com). Basketball trivia about retirements, edit distances (Hamming, Levenshtein, Damerau-Levenshtein), and derangements with Python and Mathematica code examples
Do Nothing (blog.tanyakhovanova.com). Creative interpretations of 8 + 8 = 91: flipping paper, modular arithmetic, bases, alien numerals, and classroom ideas
An NSA Puzzle (futilitycloset.com). NSA puzzle on finding integers a,b,c,d,e,f,g >1 satisfying four equations and their product yields a unique solution 2,3,5,7,11,13,17
📜 History & Biographies
Book review: Science and Islam – A History by Ehsan Masood (ianhopkinson.org.uk). Science and Islam–A History by Ehsan Masood surveys Abbasid translation, astronomy, medicine, algebra, trigonometry, and Bijir ibn-Hayyan within the medieval Islamic empire
Academic chat: On PhD (muratbuffalo.blogspot.com). A reflection on PhD life: transformation, curiosity, mentorship, courage, and onboarding in CS, with personal anecdotes from Murat and Aleksey
Genius grant for Math-Woman (poetrywithmathematics.blogspot.com). MacArthur Fellow Lauren Williams highlighted for connections between algebraic combinatorics, math, and physics; includes Marion Cohen poetry excerpt
Oct. 9, 1873: The birth of Karl Schwarzschild (astronomy.com). Karl Schwarzschild’s birth and his pioneering solutions to Einstein’s field equations underpinning black hole theory
🤖 AI & Math
AI Delivers an Unexpected Mathematical Proof (politicalcalculations.blogspot.com). AI GPT-5-Pro reportedly produced a new, verifiable mathematics proof improving a 1/L bound in convex optimization
Turing Test at 75 (markbernstein.org). Turing Test at 75: a day-long symposium on the 75th anniversary of the Turing Test with talks and notes
AI as a Copilot for Mathematical Discovery (alexdong.com). AI as a copilot for mathematical discovery; Ken Ono discusses AI's role, conjecture generation, and the future of math research
How AI Is Replacing Mathematicians (backreaction.blogspot.com). AI tools, search for proofs, and the future role of mathematicians in problem-solving and verification
📘 Technical Notes
Binomial proportion estimation with unknown and varying number of trials (possiblywrong.wordpress.com). Estimating a Bernoulli probability from paired daily hit counts with unknown daily trials, using a trick involving Paul and Quinn’s records
Notes on using LaTeX to generate formulae (eli.thegreenplace.net). LaTeX rendering tips: standalone formulae, pandoc conversions, dvisvgm/dvipng, TikZ, TeXstudio, and Docker-based workflows
How many valid UTF-8 (or UTF-16, or UTF-32) byte sequences are there? (qntm.org). How many valid UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32 byte sequences exist, with recurrences and eigenvalues discussed
Notes - NLA MT25, Courant-Fischer minmax theorem (ollybritton.com). Courant-Fischer minmax theorem for symmetric matrices and its relation to singular values, subspace optimization, and Weyl’s inequality
Random samples from a tetrahedron (johndcook.com). Uniform random sampling inside a tetrahedron using exponential variables; compare with uniform sampling and cube-in-tetrahedron testing
Notes - NLA MT25, Norms (ollybritton.com). Three useful inequalities and alternative characterisations for matrix and vector norms in MT25 NLA notes
📐 Pure Math Research
The Unknotting Number is Not Additive (divisbyzero.com). Brittainham and Hermiller disprove additivity of unknotting number via connected sum, using torus (2,7) knot and its mirror with five-crossing projection changes
Monday Morning Math: Square Packing (threesixty360.wordpress.com). Explores packing unit squares into larger squares, with rotation effects and known results for 1–11 squares, citing Trump and others
Explicit Lossless Vertex Expanders! (gilkalai.wordpress.com). Explicit, constant-degree lossless vertex expanders via Ramanujan cubical complexes and base graphs, with group actions and LDPC-code implications
More on Carmichael (johndcook.com). Generalizations of n and n^k ending in the same digit for base b, using φ(b)+1 and λ(b)+1; Euler's φ and Carmichael's λ functions with RSA context
Lattice path matroids (matroidunion.org). Construction and properties of lattice path matroids via north/east lattice paths and duality
🧾 Formal Proofs
Formaising Domain Theory with Lean (anna-maths.xyz). Formalising domain theory in Lean: Subset predicates, inSubset wrappers, directed sets, and dcpo proofs
Theorems for Free Redux (reasonablypolymorphic.com). Explains Theorems for Free Redux: parametric polymorphism, free theorems, fmap, length, and examples like id and fromJust with type substitutions
ZF style set theory in Knuckledragger I (philipzucker.com). ZF-style set theory in Knuckledragger I builds ZFSet, defines classes, Russell’s paradox, extensionality, empty set, picking, and unions
📚 Academic Research
The Hurwitz problem for abelian differentials (arxiv:math). Introduces the Sobolev gap, a quantitative Casselman–Wallach invariant, and computes it for SL(2,ℝ), discrete and principal series. Provides uniform analytic bounds for automorphic functionals—key for representation theory
Bidifferentials, Lagrangian projections and the Virasoro extension (arxiv:math). Characterizes Lagrangian supplements of H^0(C,Ω_C) via symmetric bidifferentials and constructs a Virasoro extension of the local derivation algebra. Important for algebraic curves, de Rham cohomology and conformal structures
Lagrangian Dual Sections: A Topological Perspective on Hidden Convexity (arxiv:math). Introduces Lagrangian dual sections to expose hidden convexity via topological conditions, giving convex reformulations and algorithms for QCQPs and Stiefel-type problems. Bridges topology and optimization theory
Asymptotically large free semigroups in Zariski dense discrete subgroups of Lie groups (arxiv:math). Constructs Zariski-dense free subsemigroups in semisimple Lie group lattices whose critical exponents approach that of the ambient group, via ε-contracting elements. Significant for geometric group theory and dynamics
Motivic Homotopy Groups of Spheres and Free Summands of Stably Free Modules (arxiv:math). Shows motivic stable homotopy groups of the sphere can be recovered from p-completions and motivic cohomology, and applies this to realization/isomorphism results and free-summand questions for stably-free modules
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