Dave Neary / is on Nostr

I work for Ampere Computing, but I love maths! And yes, since I call it maths not math you know I'm not American - born and raised in Ireland, currently in the US.

Maths stuff: B.Sc. in maths, NUI Galway '96, M.Eng. in EE (Fractal methods in image analysis and compression), DCU '00, competed in contest maths all through HS and college, taught High School Contest Math at the local Art of Problem Solving Academy in Lexington, MA.

Last Notes

2025-05-21 12:36:06

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@nprofile…d6h6 What is the LLM equivalent of bandwidth for the 1990s Internet?

2025-01-04 00:58:51

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@nprofile…3yjd I agree with her. The difficulty is in determining the initial conditions of every particle in the universe, and knowing all of the fundamental equations governing their evolution.

2024-12-13 02:17:12

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@nprofile…qmju I think LLMs, perhaps augmented with domain specific RAG, have great potential as a guided learning tool - ask a question, get an overview of a topic with a bibliography generated by an AI tool. I would be interested to see what a state of the art AI generated lit review would match up against human-generated equivalents.

2024-12-12 07:00:44

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@nprofile…3yjd If you can help spread the word, I'll give it a go! The last time I delivered this, it was for our local AoPS school - a mix of parents and high school kids.

2024-12-12 06:52:08

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@nprofile…3yjd I could do my Fermat's Christmas Theorem talk again... I cover 2 proofs (Zagier's windmill proof and Dedekind's proof from the Gaussian integers being a UFD). I wonder if anyone would be interested.

2024-12-12 06:52:08

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2023-09-30 18:42:48

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@npub1knz…c73p Wow! I am curious how many points are in the set for (say) polynomials of order 21 - there are \(2^{20}\) distinct polynomials, each with 21 complex roots - giving over 21,000,000 points! I found this very surprising. It's amazing to see such beautiful complexity arise from something so simple!

2023-09-30 01:22:13

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@npub1knz…c73p @npub1f8u…6jw9 Those are Sure Skerry Lighthouse and North Rona Lighthouse. There are lots of stacks off the Scottish coast.

2023-07-29 00:18:56

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@npub1qmc…v6gx The one thing that jumped out at me, and led me to feel bad for you, was the extent to which you felt the need to qualify the work. It spoke volumes to the emotional safety of the environment you were posting to 😢

2023-05-18 01:44:24

Just thought of one of my favourite proofs:
Theorem: An irrational number raised to the power of an irrational number can be rational.
Proof: \(\sqrt{2}\) is irrational. Consider \(\sqrt{2}^{\sqrt{2}}\) (don't you love how mathematicians use the word "consider"?). Either this number is rational, or irrational. If it is rational, we're done! We have found an irrational number raised to an irrational number which is rational. If it is irrational, then: \[\left(\sqrt{2}^{\sqrt{2}}\right)^{\sqrt{2}} = \sqrt{2}^{\sqrt{2}\times \sqrt{2}} = 2\] is rational. Either way, we have found an irrational number raised to the power of an irrational number which is rational.
The thing I like about this proof is that it makes no pronouncements on \(\sqrt{2}^{\sqrt{2}}\) - whether it is rational or irrational does not matter.

2023-05-01 03:50:33

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@npub1w7a…tpn3 Definitely not a citizen 😢 And given our tax bill, definitely an unsatisfied customer.

2023-04-01 04:00:49

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#[0] I don't think so... It's March 31st tomorrow.

2023-04-01 03:58:05

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#[0] Pretty great! I got coffee in bed, had lunch with Anne at Panera Bread, had a pretty productive work day, saw Chicago at the High School this evening, and closed out the day with a Game of Thrones episode with Sean.

2023-04-01 03:58:05

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2023-04-01 03:45:38

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#[0] Happy weekend! I am doing pretty well. Not Saturday yet here, I'm still celebrating my birthday :-)

2023-04-01 03:45:38

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#[0] Happy weekend! I am doing pretty well. Not Saturday yet here, I'm still celebrating my birthday :-)