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robinhouston

@robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy
127 followers 3 following 858 posts

Maths etc. 🌉 bridged from ⁂ mathstodon.xyz/@robinhouston, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact

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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 9h
I didn’t even notice this one at first. This is cool! Talk about a weird machine. > 376. Universal computation in forced Navier–Stokes flows. Constructs viscous incompressible flows starting from rest on a fixed flat three-dimensional domain that perform universal computation under smooth […]
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 19h
Looks like something big dropped overnight: github.com/openai/math/tree/main/pr… This is going to take some digestion…
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026
This is not my fight, but I don’t at all relish the prospect of the criteria by which mathematicians are judged becoming subjective ones. That opens the door to so much potential corruption that it makes my heart sink to think of it.
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026
There's an amazing new result in algorithmic complexity today. 3SUM is the problem: given a list of n numbers – there are different versions of the problem, depending on whether the numbers have to be integers or not – determine whether three of them sum to zero. There is an O(n²) algorithm […]
mathstodon.xyz
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT9wAQSV5_4
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026
If there's anyone here who isn't yet sick of the AI/maths discourse, you might enjoy reading Kevin Buzzard's take on it: xenaproject.wordpress.com/2026/10/0…
xenaproject.wordpress.com
To grieve, or not to grieve?
Recent events in the field of AI for mathematics have shown us beyond all reasonable doubt that the field is currently undergoing a rapid transformation, unlike anything that we have ever seen before. Language models are solving hard problems which … Continue reading →
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026
Absolutely amazing progress on short superpermutations from Jay Pantone and his AI collaborators: github.com/jaypantone/superperm-upp… This breaks the existing records for all n > 7. Here is a superpermutation on 8 symbols of length 46,181 – a lot shorter than any that was […]
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026
Five regular octahedra don't quite make a ring.
Five regular octahedra don't quite make a ring.
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026
An interesting interview with Leo de Moura, the creator of Lean: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/machi…
podcasts.apple.com
Who Checks a Proof No Human Can Read? — Leo de Moura
Podcast Episode · Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) · 30 September · 1hr 14min
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 29/09/2026
I don't know who needs to hear this, but Hanayama have made MASSIVE versions of some of their most iconic puzzles, and you can now get them shipped internationally so you don't even need someone in Japan to forward them. store.hanayamatoys.co.jp/categories…
The MONUMENT cast vortex puzzle on its display standThe vortex puzzle in my hand. It is bigger than my hand.
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 28/09/2026
For my birthday, my brother-in-law gave me a 4992-digit hex number that, when used as a seed for Python’s random number generator, makes it so that printing a sequence of “random” ASCII characters actually prints a birthday greeting. I find it rather amazing that this is possible! This is the […]
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 24/09/2026
64 kibisteps
22:16
Today:
Steps
65,533
Distance
54.61Kм
Flights Climbed
29
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 20/09/2026
I appreciate that many of you despise the concept of ‘vibe math’ on principle, but I think this is a nice case study in how to do it responsibly – without subjecting mathematicians to nonsense or unreadable slop. overreacted.io/how-i-vibed-a-proof-…
overreacted.io
I vibed a proof of Conway's conjecture
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 19/09/2026
It's a joy to see Alex from Another Roof getting so much funnier, more confident, and more ambitious. And an interesting topic too! youtu.be/5A7U6grJSDo
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 19/09/2026
A nice essay from Grant Sanderson @grant, part of the ongoing series of guest posts on @tao's blog: terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/09/18/i…
terrytao.wordpress.com
If math is more than proof, we need to better celebrate the rest of it
[This is a guest post by Grant Sanderson. This blog post was initially written in a different file format and converted using AI. — T.] A sentiment echoing throughout the mathematics community right now is that solving problems and generating proofs have always served as proxies for the true goal of mathematicians, which is to […]
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 19/09/2026
This is exciting! A video about a puzzle I designed. www.youtube.com/watch?v=vifHZWX7sTM
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 18/09/2026
Are we going to be excited about the discovery of an elegant 3d aperiodic monotile, or sad that it was published as 60 pages of badly-written AI slop? Why not both! arxiv.org/abs/2609.19214
arxiv.org
A Strongly Aperiodic Monotile in Three Dimensions
Socolar and Taylor asked for a single, simply connected three-dimensional prototile that forces nonperiodicity by shape alone, admitting no weakly nonperiodic tiling; the Schmitt-Conway-Danzer biprism and the three-dimensional Socolar-Taylor tile admit screw motions or a periodic stacking direction. We exhibit a rational polyhedral $3$-ball $Q$, which we call Chair44 (R44): a seven-cube chair whose $24$ exposed unit panels carry tiny square-pyramid features, and prove, as a proof submission, that $Q$ admits tilings of $\mathbb{R}^3$ by congruent copies, reflections allowed, and that every such tiling has no translational period and a symmetry group of order at most $24$; every tiling is homochiral and carries a unique infinite hierarchy of nested supertiles. The solid was designed to a reading of the aperiodic-monotile phenomenon reached with the Six Birds emergence calculus (Section 3.3), and the construction turns on a single finite test, checked by machine: the tile's own contact rule survives coarsening, so that the decoded parent tiling obeys the tile's rule and no other. The proof combines a written geometric argument, that the features force every tiling onto a registered lattice, with exhaustive finite enumerations; the companion census is replayed by two independent implementations, every finite gate is kernel-checked in Lean 4 (modulo a named compiler hook per native_decide theorem), and the written geometric lemmas and the logical assembly are Lean theorems as well, so that the theorem is kernel-checked modulo the named compiler hooks; the written proofs remain as exposition.
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026
gowers.wordpress.com/2026/09/17/why…
gowers.wordpress.com
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 16/09/2026
If this is what it takes to keep the bots out, just let them in. This is too much
An incomprehensible captcha
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 15/09/2026
The Age of Wonders and Terrors, by Scott Aaronson: scottaaronson.blog/?p=10062
scottaaronson.blog
The Age of Wonders and Terrors
Twenty years ago, when the idea of AI taking over the world in our lifetimes still struck most of us as the unconstrained fantasy of those who knew too much science fiction and too little science, …
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 14/09/2026
I'm enjoying the recent series of guest articles on @tao's blog on the general topic of AI in maths: terrytao.wordpress.com
terrytao.wordpress.com
What's new
Updates on my research and expository papers, discussion of open problems, and other maths-related topics. By Terence Tao
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 08/09/2026
Long-term followers may remember that I've been interested in this shape, which (rather to my surprise) can fill space.
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 02/09/2026
* want a lot of 3mm magnets for a project; * they are out of stock, so I order 4mm magnets instead; * they arrive; * they’re actually 3mm. Never believe anyone who tells you two wrongs don’t make a right.
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 27/08/2026
If you’re desperate for a crumb of #emf2026 magic in your everyday life, you can now 3d print your very own miniature model of the Maths Village Cuboctahedron! makerworld.com/en/models/3226685-mo…
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 24/08/2026
I assume everyone gets an overpowering urge to say HAIL ERIS when seeing one of these.
A big yellow lorry with the work DISCORDIA written on it in massive red letters
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 23/08/2026
And here is a claimed complex structure on S^6: alpo.ge/s6.pdf This is a notorious problem that has attracted many claimed solutions that did not stand up to scrutiny, so some caution is warranted, but IMHO there are also grounds for optimism. (Context […]
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 23/08/2026
This is interesting. What’s the smallest set in which a regular star with 3–6 arms can be rotated all the way round? It’s known that for a line segment, arbitrarily small sets are possible: this is the Kakeya needle problem. It was known that arbitrarily small sets were *not* possible for […]
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 23/08/2026
Wild things are happening in the world of elliptic curves. On Thursday a curve of rank ≥ 30 was announced, surpassing the previous rank record of 29: elliptic-rank.icarm.cloud/curve/273 A few minutes ago, a curve of rank ≥ 31 dropped: elliptic-rank.icarm.cloud/curve/302 Are […]
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 23/08/2026
In case I'm not the only person left who prefers to read a paper book rather than an electronic screen, you may be interested to know that the Bridges proceedings are obtainable in physical form.
A copy of the 2026 Bridges proceedings on my kitchen table. The book is thick enough to stun an ox.
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 21/08/2026
“20 yr ago”
Taking the hobbits to Isengard
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 20/08/2026
New opinion from Doron Zeilberger, that I'm sure will prove as uncontroversial as all his other opinions. sites.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/Op…
sites.math.rutgers.edu
Doron Zeilberger's 197th Opinion
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 20/08/2026
The new length-5905 superpermutation fits very very easily into the 1729 characters of a Mathstodon post, in kernel/extensions format, viz […]
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 20/08/2026
There have been a lot of new discoveries about superpermutations of late, but my absolute favourite is Andrei Teodorescu’s discovery of a length-5905 superpermutation on 7 symbols. This is one shorter than the best that was previously known – and honestly one shorter than I would have guessed […]
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 19/08/2026
I just saw a German man in Reykjavik airport wearing a Look Mum No Computer shirt.
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 13/08/2026
RE: mathstodon.xyz/@GerardWestendorp/11… The interactive soccer ball explorer is great fun. There are 1812 possibilities! lipn.univ-paris13.fr/~fernique/gall…
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 11/08/2026
Unpacking after Bridges is rather a surreal experience.
A suitcase full of caltrops
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Matt Henderson @matthen.com · 10/08/2026
gist.github.com/matthen/18c2...
gist.github.com
Genus-291 toroidal polyhedron by Squilliams - V=1770, E=6600, F=4250 (chi = -580)
Genus-291 toroidal polyhedron by Squilliams - V=1770, E=6600, F=4250 (chi = -580) - README.md
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 10/08/2026
Does anyone know where to find a 3d model or precise description of this new toroid? youtu.be/0aTUTxOiRgU
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 06/08/2026
An interesting effect: photographing this projected screen with my phone camera causes a rainbow effect on the photograph, which isn't visible to the naked eye. Is this a common phenomenon? I don't remember seeing it before.
Henriette-Sophie Lipschuetz gestures at a projected image in a seminar room. The image is strongly rainbow-coloured with a horizontal hue gradient.The projector that is projecting the image in the previous photograph.
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 04/08/2026
I'm heading to Galway today. Who else is going to Bridges?
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 01/08/2026
“we are sharing a *selection* of ten results…” (emphasis mine). I wonder what else they're sitting on. openai.com/index/ten-advances-in-ma…
openai.com
Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 30/07/2026
As @pozorvlak mentioned earlier, after YEARS of stasis there has been an astonishing amount of progress since last week on the minimal superpermutation problem. The record has been broken for all n > 7, the lower bound has been massively improved; and there's even a proposed proof that 872 […]
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 30/07/2026
Have you ever wondered how to construct precise square roots using the drawing tools in PowerPoint and Google Slides? Man is it your lucky day! www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL6aefA8wgo
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Pozorvlak @pozorvlak.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 30/07/2026
It has been a *wild* week on the mailing list devoted to the minimum superpermutation problem. After seven years of no progress, we've seen - an improvement to the 4chan lower bound - a new lower bound based on a draft proof that had been in limbo for years - an improvement to the upper bound […]
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Chris Staecker @chrisstaecker.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 26/07/2026
RE: mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csLO_bot/11691… It looks as though one of my favourite problems has been solved! It's related to both Petri nets and linear logic. BVAS are more general than VAS – which are more or less the same as Petri nets. The reachability problem for VAS was […]
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 24/07/2026
Surely someone is missing something here: the woven artefact is clearly a cuboctahedron, and I don't think any wasps make cuboctahedral nests.
A ball woven from dried grass or reeds, resembling a cuboctahedron with the square faces woven and the triangular omitted.A close-up of the label, which reads as follows:

ornament imitating the globular nest of a tree-building wasp. For hanging from house porch: Real combs sometimes hang with them.
(Formerly as traps for spirits).

EASTERN ANGAMI,
LESHEMIE (CHEROMA)
NAGA HILLS, [date obscured]
1.1. J.P. Mills, 1933.
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 23/07/2026
Very nice YouTube short summarising @Ayliean’s record-breaking 14-disk Towers of Hanoi solve at #emfcamp. youtube.com/shorts/3waVV7Fjct0A
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 22/07/2026
[Q: What is never odd or even?] A: a palindrome
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robinhouston @robinhouston.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 20/07/2026
RE: mathstodon.xyz/@gregeganSF/11695044… Wow. Humans are really bad at maths, it turns out. We spent the last 80+ years thinking this conjecture was true, but there is a simple counterexample.
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