20 posts
A non-mathematical introduction to Kalman Filters for programmers – Pravesh Koirala –Read my manifesto on Code as an alternative to Mathematics. Code for this article can be found on this Colab Notebook should you choose to follow along. Why Kalman Filters? Kalman filters are ingenius. If you have never heard of them, then a very intuitive (and arguably reductive) way to think about them is to
Math for Future Scientists: Require Statistics, Not Calculus –I totally agree with this. Ive used or needed to use statistics ans probability a lot more often than calculus: “The case for ending calculus requirements for science majors.”
Bartosz Ciechanowski Interactive articles about physics, math, and engineering. Amazing explanations. Watches. Gears. Gps. May 8, 2022 at 06:29AM
Geometry (Points, Vectors and Normals) Lesson summary: In this lesson we will learn about the concept of point, vector, normal and matrices. These concepts are used everywhere in CG, whether in modelling, simulation, animation or rendering. They are the essential ingredients of any graphics application. June 9, 2021 at 05:58AM
rubysolo/dentaku math and logic formula parser and evaluator. Contribute to rubysolo/dentaku development by creating an account on GitHub. May 31, 2021 at 03:19PM
Standard Deviation is an Inferior Measurement*
Interesting bit of statistics esoterica…
tags: standard deviation statistics mean
Seems like a comprehensive but short and sweet set of basic math notes for problem solving. College level.
Ok you don’t need this more than once every decade, but if you do need help in remembering how complicated trigonometry scenarios work this is a beautiful tool. When you are working on navigation and Kalman Filters, its a helpful reminder of those sines and cosines!
Myo | How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love Quaternions
Quaternions are a really complicated mathematical concept which are used extensively in 3d robotics. They are really hard to understand. This article helps.
tags: Quaternions robotics 3d
This is very interesting and cool way to use ruby for fancy cli scripts, like people often use AWK. I haven’t quite figured out how to use it but it’s cool!
Markov Chains explained visually
A really clear visual explanation of what a Markova chain is and what it is good for.
tags: markovchains visual explanation
If you are anything like me, this is something you’ve try to articulate. Here’s a great article on that arcane topic!
What is algebra? | profkeithdevlin:
Is mastery of algebra (i.e., algebraic thinking) worth the effort? You bet — though you’d be hard pressed to reach that conclusion based on what you will find in most school algebra textbooks. In today’s world, most of us really do need to master algebraic thinking. In particular, you need to use algebraic thinking if you want to write a macro to calculate the cells in a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel. This one example alone makes it clear why algebra, and not arithmetic, should ...
You can’t be a self-respecting computer or science geek and not have heard about the Fibonacci series. You know, 1-1-2-3-5-8… etc. How about Fibonacci’s Ratio? How about the Golden Mean or the Divine Proportion? Not sure, right?
Fibonacci, and its role in art, design and photography is a little less well known. As I continue to study photography and art I came across this excellent article about that very topic:
“Hopefully, this article has shed some light on a somewhat mysterious subject in the world of photography. Fibonacci’s Ratio is a powerful tool for composing your photographs, and it should’t be dismissed as a minor difference from the rule of thirds.
While the grids look simila...
Say what? I came across this paper; Mathematical Foundations of Consciousness. I generally love this stuff: Mathematics and writings on the nature of consciousness. When I saw this paper the title really intrigued me. Now my math is not strong enough to tackle anything like PhD level math (in fact my math knowledge beyond under graduate level is definitely uneven.) “The self-referential qualities of consciousness place it outside conventional logic(s) upon which scientific models and frameworks have heretofore been constructed. However more contemporary mathematical development has begun to deal with features of self-reference. We shall address Schrödinger’s...
Ok, probably to a mathematician these are not arcane, but to normal people (oops, sorry, I love mathematicians) I think they might be. Anyway, read and enjoy without any further commentary:
Needle-in-a-haystack Problems: “[snip…]A needle-in-a-haystack problem is a problem where the right answer is very difficult to determine in advance, but it’s easy to recognize the right answer if someone points it out to you. Faced with a big haystack, it’s hard to find the needle; but if someone tells you where the needle is, it’s easy to verify that they’re right[snip…]”
...
This article is somewhat mathematical but I am sure it still hugely simplifies the logic that led us astray. If you are a pop-math-head like me you will find it interesting: “For five years, Li’s formula, known as a Gaussian copula function, looked like an unambiguously positive breakthrough, a piece of financial technology that allowed hugely complex risks to be modeled with more ease and accuracy than ever before. With his brilliant spark of mathematical legerdemain, Li made it possible for traders to sell vast quantities of new securities, expanding financial markets to unimaginable levels.” (from Recipe for Disaster: The Formula that Killed Wall Street)
Now here‘s a recommendation: “I recently got a hold of what I consider to be the nicest mathematical book in my collection. As a matter of fact, it’s the nicest book I own, period – even though I posses bookshelves teaming with terrific titles on mathematics, science, programming, computer science, photography and so on.” (from Math-Blog)
That goes right onto my wish list!
Check out this post from Ajaxian:
"Dheera Venkatraman has released Fooplot, a new website that plots any function, and supports Google Maps-style panning around.
Fooplot is currently using SVG and VML to do the rendering and canvas support is coming for Safari.
For good SVG browsers like Firefox and Opera, 3D plots work too.
In the future, it will communicate with Google spreadsheets and interact with server-side scripts that do curve fitting and other tasks.
(from: Fooplot: function plotting)
When I was a kid I remember reading about this pattern. I never knew it was called a, what, Analemma??? Anyway, Check out this post from Good Math, Bad Math:
...
Kottke points to anamusing set of logic questions posted by “3 Quarks Daily” with the (silly – you’ll see why) suggestion that it might make good dinner table conversation this Thanksgiving (in the US , of course 🙂 I won’t repeat Kottke’s quote of the Rope Burning Question, but you should check it out. The scenario is about two ropes which burn at different rates, but take always take exactly an hour, and you have a lighter. It ends with: “Now you are asked to measure a period of 45 minutes. How will you do it?”
I thought about it for about 60 seconds. Clearly the answer is: “I use a stopwatch.”
I don’t think that’s the answer that Kottke or Abbas Raza had in mind, but that’s the kind of crowd that sits around my table… You?