#math

I picked up David Bessis' Mathematica on a whim. It focused on a discussion of what math truly was to one accomplished in it, and how the public’s understanding of what mathematicians do is wildly, grossly inaccurate. The book’s premise: language is a poor medium for transmission of intuition itself, whereas math and logical proofs are overkill but required to express it. Mathematics, he argues, is the art of intuition and imagination, not calculation, trying its best damndest to define it. But, since intuition is so beyond language, we have to invent new concepts and symbols in which to grasp it and communicate it.

I enjoyed it, and have certainly spent time thinking on its lessons, but wished it delved more into direct hands-on walkthroughs of intuition in which to further illustrate the separation of language and logic, or perhaps more solid advice on directly attacking the problem of intuition growth.

#books #math

Last night Adam gave a great presentation at the SDx paper club. The idea of using ODE solvers as an activation function was 🤯. It’s heavily used in robotics, so I’ll likely be doing a deep dive at some point; specifically building a neuron that uses the paper’s techniques to better understand the inner workings.

#AI #math

I’ve been working on arkaine’s OCr service all weekend, and need a break. I’ve been toying with the idea of an equation explainer that copies the style I present complicated math in my paper club presentations. I’ve decided to step away from arkaine and try using it a bit in a prototype. Hence: eli5-equations.

Want to get a walk through of a complicated equation? Pass it in with some context and see if your evening is a bit enlightened. I’ll do a further write up on this later probably.

#arkaine #AI #math