MetaFilter posts tagged with mathematics and topology

Information doesn't want to be scale free

escabeche — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:48:33 -0800

"the scale-free network modeing paradigm is largely inconsistent with the engineered nature of the Internet..." For a decade it's been conventional wisdom that the Internet has a scale-free topology, in which the number of links emanating from a site obeys a power law. In other words, the Internet has a long tail; compared with a completely random network, its structure is dominated by a few very highly connected nodes, while the rest of the web consists of a gigantic list of sites attached to hardly anything. Among its other effects, this makes the web highly vulnerable to epidemics. The power law on the internet has inspired a vast array of research by computer scientists, mathematicians, and engineers. According to an article in this month's Notices of the American Math Society, it's all wrong. How could so many scientists make this kind of mistake? Statistician Cosma Shalizi explains how people see power laws when they aren't there: "Abusing linear regression makes the baby Gauss cry."

Fun for all ages, dimensions.

Eideteker — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:15:05 -0800

Topology and Geometry Software by Jeff Weeks.

Rock the streets

Blazecock Pileon — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:47:21 -0800

Whether you want to learn to lace shoes, tie shoelaces, stop shoelaces from coming undone, calculate shoelace lengths or even repair aglets, Ian's Shoelace Site has the answer!

In Soviet Russia, sponge soaks you

Blazecock Pileon — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 12:37:35 -0800

Dr. Jeannine Mosely finishes building a level-3 Menger sponge from business cards. You can also build your own, though Dr. Mosely warns, "[a] level 4 sponge would require almost a million cards and weigh over a ton. I do not believe it could support its own weight — so a level 3 is the biggest sponge we can hope to build." (related)

Interview of Grigory Perelman

Gyan — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 20:36:13 -0800

Grigory Perelman, awarded the Fields Medal for his work on the Poincare Conjecture, talks to the New Yorker.

paging dr. perelman

kliuless — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 18:54:36 -0800

Grisha Perelman, where are you? Perelman has quite possibly solved one of mathematics biggest mysteries, Poincaré’s conjecture, but has since disappeared.

rubber biscuit

kliuless — Sun, 01 Aug 2004 20:46:05 -0800

The Shapes of Space [note : pdf, sciam, poincaré conjecture]