Questions tagged [computation]
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31 questions
2 votes
0 answers
111 views
Where did the earliest Turing machine undecidability proofs appear?
It is common in any theoretical computer science textbook or class to prove the undecidability of various decision problems for Turing machines. It is often claimed that Turing himself established the ...
- 75
12 votes
4 answers
3k views
How did the shift from constructed mathematical objects to modern mathematics occur?
How did the shift from the times of Thales, Pythagoras, and even Euclid, where mathematical objects were found, exhibited, or constructed from given entities, to modern mathematics occur? In modern ...
- 1,329
3 votes
0 answers
393 views
How were sine and cosine functions computed before the notion of Taylor series?
We know using modern analysis techniques that $\sin x$ and $\cos x$ can be computed by their Taylor series (in fact the Taylor series are given as the definitions of these functions in today's real ...
- 443
4 votes
0 answers
179 views
Who bet against the usefulness of matrix inversion – or is it a myth?
In my linear-algebra and numerics courses, I frequently heard an anecdote about some professor betting – literally, with money – that there would never be any application where computing the actual ...
- 1,082
5 votes
1 answer
367 views
What did Delaunay invent Delaunay triangulations for before computers were developed?
I was teaching my students about Delaunay Triangulation which is a method for dividing a surface into triangles. This triangulation method is the basis of most computer calculations that require a ...
- 284
11 votes
1 answer
536 views
Does Blum's speedup theorem have any conceptual predecessors?
Blum's speedup theorem seems to me that bears at least some superficial resemblance to Gödel's research on the length of proofs under certain axiomatic systems. Does Blum's speedup theorem have any ...
- 1,547
0 votes
3 answers
360 views
Why were early electronic computers mutually incompatible?
At the beginning of the electronic computing era in the 1950s, computers were mutually incompatible both in terms of hardware and software. It was impossible to use peripherals (e.g. punched card or ...
user12316
3 votes
1 answer
83 views
Who is Wanner from Rosenrock-Wanner (ROW) methods?
I've spent some time with a search engine trying to find out about Wanner, a person whose surname is mentioned in the name of Rosenbrock-Wanner (ROW) methods primarily used for iteratively solving ...
- 133