iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mihai Nica @mihainica.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

I made a 3 part YouTube series on *AlphaZero Explained* which explains the math/algorithm behind Google DeepMind's AI that achieved superhuman performance in Chess & Go. All 3 videos come with an *interactive online Python notebook* using Connect 4 as an example. PART 1: youtu.be/mYZlV44UzLc

youtu.be

AlphaZero Explained 1: How it Solves "Explore vs Exploit" [UCB Algorithm]

YouTube video by Prof Mihai Nica

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Mihai Nica @mihainica.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Happy Pi day! My video this year is about how to find pi from random numbers using one of the most famous results in all of probability/statistics youtu.be/WUCm18WFuCE

youtu.be

Why is π Hiding in Random Noise? | Pi Day 2026

YouTube video by Prof Mihai Nica

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Mihai Nica @mihainica.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Recording of my talk on the Hermite Polynomials in Probability Theory at the Canadian Math Society meeting in Toronto this weekend. youtu.be/pD-lU_pj3zs?...

youtu.be

The Hermite Polynomials & Probability | Lecture at Canadian Math Society 2025

YouTube video by Prof Mihai Nica

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Mihai Nica @mihainica.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

My new video on how I found and proved the optimal strategy in the kids game "Guess Who?" youtu.be/_3RNB8eOSx0 . Turns out that viral Mark Rober video was not exactly correct....

youtu.be

The *BEST* "Guess Who?" strategy (Beyond binary search)

YouTube video by Dr Mihai Nica

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Mihai Nica @mihainica.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

New video on an unexpected appearance of the Fibonacci numbers in a probability problem about a random walk youtu.be/g8aA76pNBkg

youtu.be

A Pentagon, a Random Walk, and... Fibonacci?!

YouTube video by Dr Mihai Nica

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Mihai Nica @mihainica.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

@hankgreen.bsky.social Love the new 4x3 word game! I thought of it as a Venn Diagram (see image). This way, you can make other patterns, e.g. I made an "outer square". I created an app where you can play & make more here marimo.app?slug=708we4 and a 6 minute YouTube tutorial youtu.be/VVunnwwupT4

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Mihai Nica @mihainica.bsky.social · 19/04/2025

Episode 1 of Parlor Room on @dropout.tv is an absolute triumph. Wavelength is one of my favourite games in real life, and I had just as much fun watching y'all as playing it myself. I was laughing nonstop the whole episode. Can't wait for the rest of the season Becca! @thebeccascott.bsky.social

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Mihai Nica @mihainica.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

With Svante Janson and Simon Segert, we just posted out latest in the Alice HH vs BoB HT saga on the arxiv! arxiv.org/abs/2503.19035 We generalize to strings other than HH or HT. I also made a YouTube video a while ago giving the general idea youtu.be/_ufR0fOFO-E?...

arxiv.org

The generalized Alice HH vs Bob HT problem

In 2024, Daniel Litt posed a simple coinflip game pitting Alice's "Heads-Heads" vs Bob's "Heads-Tails": who is more likely to win if they score 1 point per occurrence of their substring in a sequence ...

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Mihai Nica @mihainica.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Happy Pi Day!!! I made a probability proof of why Pi is in the bell curve. Along the way we find an interesting formula for the sum of squares X^2+Y^2 for two normal random variables. youtu.be/sN-ZQ3rohsY

youtu.be

π day 2025: Why is Pi in the Bell Curve?

YouTube video by Dr Mihai Nica

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Mihai Nica @mihainica.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

New video explainer on the Reinforcment Learning Algorithm from DeepSeek's R1 paper (Group Relative Policy Optimization). It uses Triangle Creatures as a cute example; I tried to make super accessible, so even if you've never done RL stuff before I hope you'll still enjoy! youtu.be/wXEvvg4YJ9I

youtu.be

DeepSeek's learning algorithm explained with Triangle Creatures

YouTube video by Dr Mihai Nica

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Mihai Nica @mihainica.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

I used the DeepSeek Reinforcement Learning GRPO algorithm to train a triangle creature. The edges are "muscles": red=extend, blue=contract; vertices are "mass pumps": red=grow, blue=shrink. Reward = DeltaX - |DeltaY|. Full video incoming: Subscribe at www.youtube.com/@MihaiNicaMath

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Mihai Nica @mihainica.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

New video about the average maximum of rolling several dice! Surprisingly, this is related to Faulhabers general formula for the sum of powers (e.g sum of squares, sum of cubes etc) youtu.be/0d5gCzxD0sg

youtu.be

Stand-up Maths Max-of-Dice Conjecture (Finally) Proven

YouTube video by Dr Mihai Nica

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Mihai Nica @mihainica.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

Update: Today my son said, "Dad, if you solve the Riemann hypothesis, is it ok if I have the amillion dollars?" I'm starting to think he's just in it for the money

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Mihai Nica @mihainica.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

Here's a YouTube version of a short talk I gave at a Vector Institute workshop last week: youtu.be/_ufR0fOFO-E . It's like an extended trailer for this NeurIps workshop paper openreview.net/forum?id=92q.., where I use the Alice HH vs Bob HT coinflips problem to motivate the math

youtu.be

Alice HH vs Bob HT meets Deep Neural Networks

YouTube video by Dr Mihai Nica

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Mihai Nica @mihainica.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

"In the 90s, people were worried about the Ozone layer and that never became a problem! Therefore, global warming is overblown". But the ozone crisis was solved by international cooperation, it should be a model of how to address climate change. See this excellent 4 minute video youtu.be/lOQqGKt52X8

youtu.be

How To Solve Every Global Crisis

YouTube video by MinuteEarth

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Reposted by Mihai Nica

Suat Ayöz @percybuttons3.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

Question for Dec 6th,2024 from the @dailyepsilon.bsky.social calendar #MathSky

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Reposted by Mihai Nica

Gautam Kamath @gautamkamath.com · 28/11/2024

The above was a survey talk by Hassan Ashtiani, on distribution learning. Next is @mihainica.bsky.social, talking about this paper on Gaussian approximation in NNs: openreview.net/forum?id=92q.... This Twitter poll by @littmath.bsky.social makes another appearance!

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Reposted by Mihai Nica

Kosta Derpanis @csprofkgd.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

Stopping that one co-author from flaming reviewer 2 in the rebuttal.

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Reposted by Mihai Nica

ꭓle Ormsby 𓆙 @e-infinity.space · 23/11/2024

[voiceover by Sheldon Axler]:

anti-piracy meme but it says "YOU WOULDN'T CHOOSE A BASIS"

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Mihai Nica @mihainica.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Fun probability problem: pick two points uniformly at random from the unit square. How far apart are they on average? Turns out it's close to 0.5. Is there an easy way to see if it's more than or less than 0.5? I have a cute proof that it's >√(2)/3=0.4714... and <2√(2)/5=0.566.. but out of room!

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Mihai Nica @mihainica.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

This morning my 5 year old son wants to "work on a special math project". But then he tells me it's the "ReeMan hypothesis" and that if we solve it we'll get "a hundred dollar prize and we'll be rich". Fortunately he has switched to Lego before we got too far into it

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Mihai Nica @mihainica.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

New video! It's an animated picture Proof of a Putnam probability problem youtu.be/KIZZUbRA6Sw

youtu.be

Putnam Probability: A Picture Proof

YouTube video by Dr Mihai Nica

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