Top all-time · #1718
Doron Zeilberger
Personal blog · sites.math.rutgers.edumathphilosophy
Doron Zeilberger writes Department of Mathematics, a personal blog at sites.math.rutgers.edu about math and philosophy. Since 2017, 45 different Hacker News readers have linked it 56 times, most often “Opinions of Doron Zeilberger”. The last post was in 2015, but the archive is still widely read.
Department of Mathematics, The School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Most-linked posts?
- Opinions of Doron Zeilberger5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2020-11-17
- /~zeilberg/mamarim/mamarimPDF/real.pdf3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-09-09
- The Shocking State of Contemporary “Mathematics” (2009)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-02-03
- A Good Lemma Is Worth a Thousand Theorems2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-04-23
- /~zeilberg/Opinion160.html2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-07-19
- Let us move to Algorithmic, Inductive, Experimental, approach to mathematics2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-01-19
- The Princeton Companion to Mathematics [pdf]2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-08-17
What Hacker News says?
> ATT 3B2 There are a number of papers in pure mathematics authored by Doron Zeilberger and Shalosh B Ekhad. (See https://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/ekhad/papers.html for a list. I don't think it's exhaustive) Shalosh B Ekhad is Zeilberger's computer, which once upon a time was an AT&T 3B1. In Hebrew, 3 is "shalosh" and 1 is "ekhad". (The 3B1 isn't actually much like the 3B2, despite the very similar names.)
Comment linking /~zeilberg/ekhad/papers.html
on “How to Exit Vim”Submitted What Is Mathematics and What Should It Be? [pdf] as a story · 107 points
HN discussionOne of the few mathematicians not fazed by all this is Doron Zeilberger, who has given his computer (which he names Salosh B Ekhad) co-author status since 1990. He is a bit of a contrarian, but a serious mathematician. He co-invented/discovered Wilf-Zeilberger pairs. Some of his opinions: On the Leiden declaration: https://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/Opinion196.html On proof: https://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~zei…
Comment linking /~zeilberg/Opinion174.html
on ““Math 2.0” will need to value mathematical progress more holistically”Submitted Opinions of Doron Zeilberger as a story · 53 points
HN discussionuse google next time https://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/mamarim/mamarimhtml...
Comment linking /~zeilberg/mamarim/mamarimhtml/UltraF.html
on “What Happened at Alameda Research”Submitted Topology: The Slum of Combinatorics as a story · 27 points
HN discussionMaybe there isn’t a math replication crisis, but there is a kind of math fragmentation crisis. Sub-fields of mathematics have gotten so deep that specialists can’t communicate with one another [0]. I’ve heard this expressed by other mathematicians as having only 2 or 3 other people in the world that they can discuss their work with. The level of solitary study necessary to make progress is another sign of this pheno…
Comment linking /~zeilberg/Opinion104.html
on “Why isn't there a replication crisis in math?”Submitted The Princeton Companion to Mathematics [pdf] as a story · 10 points
HN discussionApart from his interesting ideas about infinity, Zeilberger has things to say about math contests. See http://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/Opinion71.html I'd love to find a modern equivalent of the "gilyonot lematematika" he mentions.
Comment linking /~zeilberg/Opinion71.html
on “Why Discrete Math Is Important”Submitted If you toss a coin n times, how likely is HH to show up more than HT? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThey have started providing some answers: https://mitp-content-server.mit.edu/books/content/sectbyfn/b... There are other sources on the web with answers. For example, https://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~ajl213/CLRS/CLRS.html Often you can find some solutions to problem sets on course pages that use the book. I agree that it would be better to provide solutions, but not all textbooks are written to be used in self-study…
Comment linking /~ajl213/CLRS/CLRS.html
on “Software engineering books”Submitted The Shocking State of Contemporary “Mathematics” (2009) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionFrom another tweet of his: Bell on Bohm - Sheldon Goldstein - https://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~oldstein/papers/bb.pdf
Comment linking /~oldstein/papers/bb.pdf
on “Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger”Submitted An Interview with Dirac as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThere are people like the late Edward Nelson who represent radical formalism: https://web.math.princeton.edu/~nelson/papers/rome.pdf and question the consistency of the commonly used axiomatic systems like peano arithmetic: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gsvQSpeDHKXxjXwuM/edward-nel... (Although his inconsistency proof of PA turned out to be flawed.) One should also mention Wittgensteins remarks: https://plato.stan…
Comment linking /~zeilberg/OPINIONS.html
on “Philosophy of mathematics – a reading list (2020)”Submitted History of Mathematics as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI remember encountering this wonderful page/website about ten years ago, and I was struck by two things: 1. How effective it was (and is). Both the demonstrations here (of Boyer-Moore algorithm, and of Knuth-Morris-Pratt) illustrate the algorithms very clearly (the same for the linear-time majority vote algorithm); the interactive (web) medium really helps (just hyperlinks and maybe the back button); and the technol…
Comment linking /~zeilberg/Opinion82.html
on “The Boyer-Moore Fast String Searching Algorithm”Submitted Theorems for a Price: Tomorrow's Semi-Rigorous Mathematical Culture (1994) [pdf] as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI'm reminded of a post called Music and Lyrics in Math Talks ( https://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/Opinion78.html ) by the mathematician Doron Zeilberger: > Human beings have bodies and souls. Computers have hardware and software, and math talks have lyrics and music. Most math talks have very hard-to-follow lyrics, […] > But like a good song, and a good opera, you can still enjoy it if the music is good. The “…
Comment linking /~zeilberg/Opinion78.html
on “That’s not why I did it”Submitted Let us move to Algorithmic, Inductive, Experimental, approach to mathematics as a story · 2 points
HN discussionFor example, the course "Experimental Mathematics" given by Doron Zeilberger. Interesting stuff. Link, for anybody else who's curious: https://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/teaching.html
Comment linking /~zeilberg/teaching.html
on “Mathematicians Report New Discovery About the Dodecahedron”Submitted Dr. Z's Opinions as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI majored in statistics undergraduate and being able to derive and prove the gamblers ruin problem is one of the requirements. At 50/50 it's your money over your plus house's money. And it gets drastically worse as soon as the house gets even a slight edge. I wasn't the casino's target anyways as I saw it was a waste of time and I loathe all the time wasted walking past the gaming area to even see music at a done he…
Comment linking /~zeilberg/EM20/GamblersRuin.pdf
on “To make a fortune, target bored young men who want to make a fortune”Submitted Dr. Z's Opinions as a story · 1 points
HN discussionWouldn't that be backwards? The purpose of notation is to aid human thought and communication. Technology should adapt to whatever notation would be most useful to mathematicians, rather than mathematicians adapting their notation for the sake of technology (like “more easily typesettable”). The blackboard-bold fonts are an interesting example of this, with computer typefaces being created for what mathematicians us…
Comment linking /~zeilberg/Opinion78.html
on “Boiling lead and black art: a history of mathematical typography”Submitted Plane Geometry: An Elementary Textbook by Shalosh B. Ekhad, XIV (Circa 2050) as a story · 1 points
HN discussion>How much precedence is there for machines or tools getting an author credit in research? For a datum of one, the mathematician Doron Zeilberger give credit to his computer Shalosh B. Ekhad on select papers. https://medium.com/@miodragpetkovic_24196/the-computer-a-mys... https://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/akherim/EkhadCredit... https://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/pj.html
Comment linking /~zeilberg/pj.html
on “GPT-5.2 derives a new result in theoretical physics”Submitted A Good Lemma Is Worth a Thousand Theorems as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThis reminds of Doron Zeilberger's statement that "real" analysis is just a degenerate case of discrete analysis [0]. [0]: https://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/mamarim/mamarimPDF/...
Comment linking /~zeilberg/mamarim/mamarimPDF/real.pdf
on “The shadowy world of umbral calculus [video]”Submitted Opinion 195 as a story · 1 points
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