In recreational mathematics, a magic square is a square grid (equal number of rows and columns) filled with distinct numbers such that the numbers in each row, and in each column, as well as the numbers in the main and secondary diagonals, all add up to the same value, called the magic constant.

You gotta see this fun!

## The Man Who Knew Infinity

Via Wikipedia:

The Man Who Knew Infinity is a 2015 British biographical drama film based on the 1991 book of the same name by Robert Kanigel. The film stars Dev Patel as the real-life Srinivasa Ramanujan, a mathematician who after growing up poor in Madras, India, earns admittance to Cambridge University during World War I, where he becomes a pioneer in mathematical theories with the guidance of his professor, G. H. Hardy (played by Jeremy Irons).

## When is a number an integer?

This post poses a seemingly very simple question:

“When is a number an integer?”

and very quickly evolves to provide a delightful exposition of what it means when someone answers with “it depends”.

My vote is that the most intuitive and least-surprising approach is x%%1==0.

## The perennial fear revealed by a rules engine

When seeking to attain mastery of rules engines (RE), you will experience an odd phenomenon. Others, upon hearing some details of your course of study, will react in a what initially appears to be a manner angrily dismissive of the topic itself. This is strange given the fundamental role that computation plays in literally everything we do, from a manifest perspective, with hardware computers, organic computers, and other.

Upon further interaction, and reflection, it quickly becomes apparent what motivates this reaction is fundamentally, the re-experience of a long inaccessible, perennial fear.
Continue reading “The perennial fear revealed by a rules engine”

## Distinguishing models

It is important to distinguish between the mathematical numbers, the Scheme objects that attempt to model them, the machine representations used to implement the numbers, and notations used to write numbers.

— R6RS Chapter 3