Honey, I Finished The Internet

10 Replies to “Honey, I Finished The Internet”

1. The so-called arabic numeral system is actually hindu; including zero

2. Hmmmm… This article seems like an excuse to do some YT denigrating.

3. What is “YT denigrating.” ?

4. “There are a few theories as to why the school faded. Perhaps a dynasty change led to funding cuts.”
   The early 16th century in India was one of enormous political change in India. The last gasp of Mongol conquest began at the beginning of the century under Babar, and would within two decades conquer the Delhi Sultanate and virtually all of southern India.
   Far more than just funding cuts, it was a war of conquest which swept the entire subcontinent. The Moghul Empire which emerged would last until the mid-18th century.

5. “There are a few theories as to why the school faded. Perhaps a dynasty change led to funding cuts.”
   Far more than just funding cuts, the beginning of the 16th century was one of enormous political change in India. It marked the last gasp of Mongol expansion with the conquest of northern India by Babar. Over the next two decades, essentially all of India would be overrun, forming the Mogul Empire which would last until about the mid-18th century.

6. In my day there were a number of math profs from India. The steep part of the learning curve was understanding their English.

7. Calculus and everything derived from it depends to some extent on these concepts of infinitesimals and infinite series,” says Kim Plofker, author of Mathematics in India.

   A strange comment, since a rigorous analysis of the calculus does not use infinitesimals. Rather it’s based on Cauchy’s definition of the limit, which cleverly avoids any reference to the “infinitely small”.

8. YT = whitey; denigrating white people.

9. One of the greatest accomplishments in the history of cryptography occurred in 1940 when a Swedish mathematician broke the German code used for strategic military communications. This story has all the elements of a classic thriller: a desperate wartime situation; a moody and secretive mathematical genius with a talent for cryptography; and a stunning mathematical feat, mysterious to this day. Arne Beurling, the man who inherited Einstein’s office at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, was the figure who played this role at a crucial moment in world history.
   Though the cracking of the code from the Geheimschreiber (G-Schreiber) device is every bit as impressive as the breaking of the Enigma code by the Poles and English, this secret has been kept for over 50 years! Through the eyes of a former head of Sweden’s signal intelligence organization, Bengt Beckman, the reader will learn about the events leading up to the breakthrough and make the acquaintance of not only a remarkable mathematician, but also a remarkable human being.
   Arne Beurling was a leading international figure who achieved beautiful results in mathematical analysis. By the arrival of World War II, he was one of the most powerful and original mathematicians in the world and widely considered a genius. During his military service, he demonstrated a flair for code and was well known within Swedish cryptology circles. The natural choice of the Swedish intelligence service was to place Beurling at the center of the group charged with breaking the G-Schreiber code. His single-handed effort “broke the unbreakable”. Using only teleprinter tapes and cipher text, he deciphered the code that the Germans believed impossible to crack–in two weeks!
   The feat, in a word, was astonishing. Many wonder how he did it. But Beurling took his secret to the grave, retorting when asked, “A magician does not reveal his secrets.”

10. http://www.ams.org/bookstore-getitem?key=isbn&id=0-8218-2889-4