Update (5/7): This post earned me a spot on the not-so-exclusive club of people called names such as a "narrow-minded" "biased" "religious worshiper" "who doesn't want to learn something difficult and new" by Luboš Motl. Interestingly, he mostly takes issue with my discounting the possibility that the complexity of SAT is something like $latex n^{1000}$ or $latex … Continue reading Reasons to care: In honor of Scott Aaronson
The New Yorker on P vs NP
A new review is out for Lance Fortnow's new book "The Golden Ticket: P, NP and the Search for the Impossible". In another piece of news: congratulations to new members of the National Academy of Science Éva Tardos and Avi Wigderson!
Research Life-Stories: Erin Wolf Chambers
Next story on our project from Erin Wolf Chambers: ------------------------ I spent most of my first couple of years of graduate school unsuccessfully trying to figure out what "research" meant. I read papers and had plenty of meetings, but somehow had no luck really making new progress on any of the problems I looked at. … Continue reading Research Life-Stories: Erin Wolf Chambers
History Repeats Itself in the Notices of AMS
Before Communications of ACM became cool again, I’ve been a regular reader of the Notices of American Mathematical Society. I still check it out occasionally to keep tabs on the mathematical community. This month’s issue featured a lengthy article with a lofty title “Mathematical Methods in the Study of Historical Chronology”. It covers the work … Continue reading History Repeats Itself in the Notices of AMS
On intellectual passion and its unfortunate confusion with sexual passion (and how it may relate to issues of gender)
The following is a post by Oded Goldreich which I found very interesting. It is based on a brave and important Hebrew post/essay, and I'm grateful to Oded for bringing it to my attention, translating parts of it and allowing me to post it here as well. I think that this is exactly the kind … Continue reading On intellectual passion and its unfortunate confusion with sexual passion (and how it may relate to issues of gender)
STOC Poster Session: Deadline approaching
Just a gentle reminder that the STOC 2013 posters submission deadline is a few days away. The STOC poster session is a great way to share your work with the TCS community, be it works appearing at other venues, your STOC papers you want to talk more about, or even your FOCS submissions that you … Continue reading STOC Poster Session: Deadline approaching
Research Life-Stories: Ilya Mironov, or The First Problem I Solved
Some memories have staying power, and feel vivid and fresh like they happened yesterday. In this post I want to reminisce about the first problem I remember solving and give some context to it, which hopefully would be more interesting than the problem itself. I was truly fortunate to begin my mathematical education in the … Continue reading Research Life-Stories: Ilya Mironov, or The First Problem I Solved
Congrats to ACM awards winners!
ACM has just announced its awards. In particular, the Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice award was given to Andrei Broder, Moses Charikar, and Piotr Indyk, for their work on Locality-Sensitive Hashing (LSH)! LSH has already been featured in our blog, and will likely be again 🙂 The citation says: "For their groundbreaking work on Locality-Sensitive Hashing that has had … Continue reading Congrats to ACM awards winners!
Research Life-Stories: Russell Impagliazzo
Next story on our project from Russell Impagliazzo --------------------- It was my first semester at Wesleyan University. I was shuffling down the path crossing the main lawn in front of the administrative building in a jacket that was not warm enough. I had decided to astound my German professor by actually putting in a half … Continue reading Research Life-Stories: Russell Impagliazzo
Zero-Knowledge Proofs – Inherently Flawed
Update: My calculations were only correct up to a constant. Turns out that Zero-Knowledge Proofs are flawed only on April Fools Days. 364/365 of the time ZK is still as ingenious as it ever was. ----------------------------------------------- I have mixed feelings reporting my last discovery as on one hand it is undoubtedly my greatest discovery but … Continue reading Zero-Knowledge Proofs – Inherently Flawed
Windows On Theory 