Thursday, January 14, 2010

We shall not cease...

This morning I was thinking about explorers. You know, I think I can name a few explorers (thank you, third grade), like Magellan, Lewis and Clark, Columbus, etc. but when I think about these explorers, I never think of "what country did they come from?" I mean, I know the answer to that question for the aforementioned three explorers, but generally I associate explorers with "what did they discover?"

I think that's the way to live. Not to be known for where you come from, but to be known for where you went.
Posted by Anonymous at 9:22 AM

6 comments:

  1. Pericles v. 2.01/14/2010 8:43 PM

    Amen to that! I guess I think of doing science as being a different kind of explorer...if people associate me with anything, I hope it's my discoveries (which will materialize any day now...!). I certainly don't have a huge amount of "regional pride" for where I'm from...

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  2. Anonymous1/15/2010 7:16 AM

    I can't say I have a huge amount of hometown pride myself. But even if I came from somewhere really awesome, I'd rather be known for my "discoveries." I've finally come to accept that they aren't going to be "monumental"-- but I hope that my continued efforts and lifetime work will affect someone in a positive way!

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  3. Pericles v. 2.01/15/2010 10:02 AM

    Wait...so does this mean I'm going to have to solve the NP-complete problem all by myself, then?

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  4. Anonymous1/15/2010 3:00 PM

    Ha, I had to google that, I kept thinking "NP compete" (no L) and I was thinking, "Nobel Prize"? I joke about solving the Riemann Hypothesis, but...

    Let's solve this one first: "It's just a little constrained optimization"

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem

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  5. Pericles v. 2.01/15/2010 3:06 PM

    What's really interesting about the 3-D Ising model is that it falls into this class of problems ("NP complete" problems) -- my understanding is that an exact solution of the 3-D Ising model would prove that all NP-complete problems (including the traveling salesman problem) are tractable!

    The Ising model is interesting for other reasons, of course...but this just makes it a little more so.

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  6. Anonymous1/15/2010 3:16 PM

    :) you know what else could be tenuously considered to be an NP complete problem?

    Sudoku.

    Let's do the Ising model instead. I think it will be much more rewarding.

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