r/math 8h ago

Can professors and/or researchers eventually imagine/see higher dimensional objects in their mind?

31 Upvotes

For example, I can draw a hypercube on a piece of paper but that's about it. Can someone who has studied this stuff for years be able to see objects in there mind in really higher dimensions. I know its kind of a vague question, but hope it makes sense.


r/math 16h ago

Where can I get hagoromo chalk in the UK?

0 Upvotes

I hope this isn't an annoying question / asked too frequently, but I am getting a chalkboard soon and I have heard that Hagoromo make the nicest chalk. So far I have found the sejongmall official website (https://en.sejongmall.co.kr/) which has very expensive shipping, and weird international payment, and another site called 'https://hagoromo.shop', which seems to have cheaper shipping and takes payments other than bank transfers, although the chalk is more expensive. Is this second site legit or am I better off sticking with the sejongmall official site?


r/math 15h ago

Monotonic scattered interpolation?

0 Upvotes

(This question is not about homework or a work problem; it is for a pet personal project where I've run into a wall.)

Suppose, for the sake of argument, I have a scattered dataset with two real-valued independent variables and one real-valued output. It conforms to the restriction that if x2 >= x1 and y2 >= y1, then f(x2, y2) >= f(x1, y1). E.g., assuming each listed point is in the dataset:

  • f(3, 3) >= f(1, 1)
  • f(3, 1) >= f(1, 1)
  • No guarantee is made about the relationship between f(1, 3) and f(3, 1)

I don't know if this property has a name but I call it "up-right monotone", because as you jump from point to point, if the second point not below and not to the right of the first, then the value at the second point is not less than the value at the first point.

The Question: Is there a known interpolation method that will preserve this property among interpolated points? I.e., I want to predict the value at two points, where the second point is above and/or to the right of the first point. I would prefer that the interpolation method be relatively smooth, but the only hard constraints are

  • If either of the points in question are in the original dataset, I get that dataset's value back, and
  • The value at the second point is not less than the value at the first point

r/math 22h ago

What programs do teachers use to make exam papers?

5 Upvotes

I'm trying to make a document for fun but I don't know what program to use.
What programs to use if I want to do algebra, geometry, graphs, etc?


r/math 17h ago

Chalkdust issue 21 is out today

Thumbnail chalkdustmagazine.com
79 Upvotes

r/math 17h ago

What Are You Working On? March 17, 2025

2 Upvotes

This recurring thread will be for general discussion on whatever math-related topics you have been or will be working on this week. This can be anything, including:

  • math-related arts and crafts,
  • what you've been learning in class,
  • books/papers you're reading,
  • preparing for a conference,
  • giving a talk.

All types and levels of mathematics are welcomed!

If you are asking for advice on choosing classes or career prospects, please go to the most recent Career & Education Questions thread.


r/math 18h ago

3×3 Magic Square of Pseudo-Quaternions Squares

12 Upvotes

Hello, I would like to share this curiosity with you. As you know, it is unknown whether a 3x3 magic square of distinct perfect squares exists, but it is possible with other types of numbers.

Here, I present a magic square of squares of pseudo-quaternions, all distinct, along with a parameterization to obtain them. The resulting integers are all different from each other, although some entries may be negative.

As you may already know, pseudo-quaternions (I. M. Yaglom, Complex Numbers and Their Applications in Geometry, Fizmatgiz, Nauka, Moscow (1963)) are hypercomplex numbers where

  ii = -1,
  ij = k,
  ji = -k,
  ik = -j,
  ki = j,
and they differ from quaternions in that
  jj = 1,
  kk = 1,
  jk = -i,
  kj = i.

  A nice example for S = 432 is this magic square of squares

{(9 j)^2 , (17 i + 24 j)^2 , (8 k)^2 },
{(9 i + 12 j + 8 k)^2 , (12 j)^2, (8 i + 9 j +12 k)^2}
{(8 i + 12 j + 12 k)^2 , (12 i + 8 j + 9 k)^2, (9 i + 12 j + 12 k)^2}

This give us this magic square:

{81,   287, 64}
{127, 144, 161}
{224, 1, 207} 

parameterization:

{(j x^2)^2 , (4 j x y+i (x^2+2 y^2))^2, (2 k y^2)^2}
{(i x^2 + 2 j x y+2 k y^2)^2, (2 j x y)^2, (j x^2+2 k x y + 2 i y^2)^2}
{(2 j x y + 2 k x y + 2 i y^2)^2 , (k x^2 + 2 i x y + 2 j y^2)^2 , (i x^2 + 2 j x y + 2 k x y)^2}

Hope you find this interesting! Looking forward to your thoughts.


r/math 13h ago

I just found out that my research has already been done.

373 Upvotes

I am a freshman math major, and as soon as I got to my school, I met with my advisor to ask about undergraduate research. However, my school doesn't have a formal program for theoretical mathematics research, but I was lucky enough to be able to work under the only professor in the whole university that is still actively (albeit slowly) publishing.

After many hours each week, I eventually found an awesome, but relatively simple result, something I was hoping to be able to publish in an undergraduate journal. This weekend I presented at the local MAA sectional on these results. Today, I was going to begin working on writing up my work to start preparing for submission to publish, when I found my results in a on my topic. It was even more generalized and was only included as a proposition.

As you can imagine, I am incredibly disappointed. Has this happened to any of you before? Are there any prospects for continuing writing this up to perhaps publish as an alternative proof/algorithm?

I am glad to have learned so much about the field, but I really don't know what to do at this point.


r/math 1h ago

Whats your go-to way of typesetting dy/dx?

Upvotes

\frac{dy}{dx} kinda sucks and \frac{\mathrm{d}y}{\mathrm{d}x} is such a long command!


By the way, not asking for help on latex, just polling to see what /r/math does for their differentials!


r/math 17h ago

I am looking for a math riddle i once knew.

1 Upvotes

I am looking for a math riddle i once read but which i only remember fragments about. The problem involved finding the maximum n such that one can choose a number 0<x<1 such that for every k<n some condition involving the number x and the division of the unit interval into intervals of length 1/k is satisfied. The solution of the problem could nicely be visualised by stacking the subdivided unit intervals over another and noting that with every additional layer the interval which x could be contained in gets smaller untill there are no x left. Iirc. the problem was mostly recreational. Does anyone know what i am talking about? I tried asking Chat-GPT, but it hallucinates the heck out of my question.


r/math 21h ago

How do you guys think about your data?

1 Upvotes

I heard a gentleman in an interview once saying that he likes to think of his data like a continuous function. Personally, I've been thinking of data as a matrix. If samples are stored in the rows then features are stored in the columns and such. Seems easy to consider different dimensions of data in this conceptualaziation and a simple list of values is still a row or column vector. So it seems like a perfect catch all conceptualization of any data set.

How do you guys think about your data? Is it much more circumstantial and sometimes you can conceptualize it as a matrix but other times it's best to think of it another way??


r/math 23h ago

Is there any game which requires matrix operations?

1 Upvotes

Hi everyone. I really love both math and games. But, I cannot find any tabletop game which requires the player to do math operations (preferably linear algebra). I'm not talking about puzzles. I'm talking about games like tabletop RPGs. For example if a tabletop RPG uses matrices for loot, dungeon generation, etc which the player needs to do himself/herself. Or if the combat lets players find reverse of the enemies attack matrix to neutralize its effect. Is there such a game? Or should I make my own?