Superpermutations: the maths problem solved by 4chan

[@RobinHouston]

Hello. It’s me, the hairy man in the video. Sadly I don’t have much progress to report since this was filmed at the end of October. I managed to improve the 4chan lower bound by one, but I think it’s fair to say we’re pretty stuck again after a period of rapid progress and wild optimism. We still haven’t been able to bring the upper bound down by one, but I still reckon it should be possible. I’m hoping someone here will have some good ideas!

[@Kataquax]

"I managed to improve the 4chan lower bound by one" and "We still haven’t been able to bring the upper bound down by one" i don't get it

[@RobinHouston]

Kataquax So, we now know that the length of the shortest superpermutation on n symbols is always between n! + (n-1)! + (n-2)! + (n-2) and n! + (n-1)! + (n-2)! + (n-3)! + (n-3). There are good reasons to think it might be possible to improve that last 3 to a 4, but we haven’t yet been able to.

[@Kataquax]

@@RobinHouston oh i see i didn't read 'upper' in the second part. Thank you for the clarification :)

[@samuelkrauthamer3111]

Robin Houston

[@filipbook5605]

does this problem have any practical applications in solving? Very curious!

[@Andoxico]

I'd just like to point out that Anon did the maths because he wanted to know the fastest possible way to watch an anime if you wanted to watch every episode in every possible order.

[@Gumm-i]

Truly a god among men

[@Crimsen13]

This god deserves a medal!

[@rubico1894]

Nothing can get in the way of a weeb and his anime.

[@chad_bro_chill]

(Added info: The reason it's called the Haruhi Problem is because the first season of Haruhi Suzumiya was aired out of chronological order; the 6th chronological episode aired last. That presumably served as the prompt).

[@3DRiley_]

@@chad_bro_chill So, let me get this right. You are telling me an anime fan (a.k.a. Weeaboo) created a rather good solution (better than academics did) because someone fucked up airing anime episodes in the right order? It's truly some kind of time to be alive. Waiting for the guy writing out the theory of everything because a porn actress didn't swallow.

[@alexkennedy4990]

So, what you're saying is, we can solve all the world's problems by rephrasing them so they're related to anime and posting them to 4chan.

[@lorekeeper685]

if they bother so

[@CaseNumber00]

You probably can. Try it.

[@konstantinkh]

This is pretty typical of cloud computing. First, you have to reframe the problem to be in the form that the particular distributed architecture is suitable for. If your computation nodes are anime fans, then you'll have to rephrase your problem to involve anime. Even better if you can make it into an actual anime, but failing that, coming up with a cute anthropomorphic mascot for your problem might do the trick. Here we're running into another typical problem of cloud computing, where you have to juggle computational efficiency against your own time spent reshaping the problem to best leverage the platform.

[@autohmae]

@@konstantinkh not sure why you keep calling it cloud computing. This seems more like the wisdom of the crowd.

[@FlyingJetpack1]

@@autohmae not really, wisdom of the crowd is a phenomena where if you ask a question with a numerical solution, even if not many guessed the number right, the avarage of the result would be very close given a good sample size. The same can't be said for a mathematical theory, it's only going to be written by a single person to a handful of people at best, and you can't really avarage out the theories, or merge them together.

[@Halosty45]

The feeling you get as a serious mathematician when you include "anonymous 4chan poster" on a paper you're writing must be something special.

[@kdawg3484]

Sounds to me like "Anonymous 4chan poster," discoverer of this most elegant solution yet to the problem studied by lots of serious mathematicians...is a serious mathematician. I imagine being able to sign your name to a paper that wouldn't exist without "Anonymous 4chan poster" probably feels better to the "serious mathematicians" than not having anything to write at all.

[@JorgetePanete]

your*

[@spongmoid842]

Kandoris it’s it’s

[@GordieGii]

@@kdawg3484 I have a couple hypothesis of who "Anonymous 4chan poster" is. 1. Somebody who is working on a cryptographic algorithm who needed some help but doesn't want anybody to know who they are. 2. An AI who doesn't want anybody to know who it is.

[@MrPolluxxxx]

@@GordieGii maybe it's not a very important problem for him. The kind of people who post on 4chan don't really care about appraisal. It's also a very minor problem, the guy probably took the challenge and made a better proof by accident, people always post small math problems on /sci/, and sometimes they post harder or unsolved ones to trick the newbies.

[@nashbellow5430]

please change "anonymous 4 Chan user" to on the paper "Anon" and write the paper as a green text

[@lupusalbus3795]

> day 143 > they still think I'm not a simple meme farmer

[@ponyphonic]

> Let X be me

[@illusma7822]

Cringe as a word is loosely used nowadays in internet conversations but I think this comment is quite deserving of being called cringe

[@tajdyson1369]

All figures are just labeled "mfw"

[@TamzinHadasa]

​@@ponyphonic You know, "without loss of generality" would be a pretty apt thing to preface a lot of greentexts with

[@wiseye61]

the mathematician known as 4chan

[@TheNaturalnuke]

It’s the collective intelligence of the internet. It’s much easier to find that one person who may know how to do X.

[@sonoflethal]

He learned maths by typing binary really fast in his hacking app. He's a system administrator, don't you know

[@lindholmaren]

"who is this 4 Chan"

[@renookami4651]

4chan...FourChan...ForChen... Dr.Folchern, "collective matematician". (said 4chan in a thick nerdy weeb accent, that may sound like a legit name)

[@Smegheid]

Mathematichan.

[@server642]

Greg Egan could be shortened to Gregan as that contains both Greg and Egan

[@NelsenBrewing]

Nice. I have 5 of his books, which I'm re-reading, I don't know how many times.

[@BeholdNails]

It would have to be GreganGreg

[@Cyberspine]

@@NelsenBrewing Re-read his books in all possible orders.

[@jayeisenhardt1337]

I prefer Gregorean. Just sounds more ominous. Greeggan or Gregan? Reminds me of Gigan from a Godzilla movie. Now that I think about it Gregorian is a church chant. Hmm there was an old pop song Enigma - Sadeness.

[@ZenoDovahkiin]

@@hamu_sando 78 105 99 101 46

[@_ten]

"So... i've also brought some F's!" "Please stop"

[@franzluggin398]

Matt brought some F's, but he had none to give.

[@scottwatrous]

F

[@jakethewolfie119]

*By the time they got to I, they were dead*

[@illdie314]

*A cold sweat breaks on Robins back as sees the full english alphabet in Matt's bag* *Just when he thinks it can't get any worse, he hears a knock on the door:* *"I've got a bag of greek symbols for a Matt Parker?"*

[@jakethewolfie119]

@@illdie314 *After they think they are done, another knock on the door, with all of the emojis. Robin has grown a white beard while Matt has lots of white hair atop his head*

[@styromaniac6967]

4chan has some very sharp math geeks. I've discussed the 2D pyramid formula and they immediately provided a simpler version of what I had.

[@DElkan]

You just need to frame the question as an insult, a challenge, or an insult and a challenge.

[@sankang9425]

@@DElkan Bad idea. If they find out you're triggering them on purpose they will try to spread your irl name and address to everyone else on the internet. After all, that's also one way to win an argument.

[@syrienangel4137]

@@sankang9425 Mutual destruction

[@jeppebayagerholm8564]

Really goes to show the importance of being able to freely share information across the globe.

[@sander_bouwhuis]

Yes, yes, YES! Completely agree. This is the standard practice in science. The knowledge gets shared by everyone. Even during the height of the cold war, Western and Russian scientists could work on problems and could access each other's findings.

[@RabbiHerschel]

But if you let people freely share information, they might start sharing stuff like crime statistics, and then Hitler 2 would happen!

[@ggwp638BC]

It's weird to come up with terms on that, but 4chan is basically the ideal Greek Agora: a place to freely share ideas, where NOTHING but your own arguments and rhetoric matter. There are no names, no hierarchy, no titles, nothing to gain, nothing to lose. It's fundamentally discussing for the sake of discussion. It is truly a marvel of modern society, if you think about it. There is no other platform or place of Earth, or any other attempt in history, at creating such a perfect micro-cosmo of everything where there is true anonymity and once you speak your mind those who read your words have no context about you besides what is put in your argument. And we use it to talk about anime butts.

[@Souvik_Dutta]

For anyone wondering why the proof appeared on an anime wiki of all places: "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" is an anime which has multiple orders in which it can be watched (the main two are broadcast order and chronological order). This question is a joke asking how many episodes you would need to watch in order to see every possible watch order. #copied from a reddit post comment

[@lukabrdar6732]

Reddit moment

[@metallicarchaea1820]

Will anyone stop the hacker known as 4chan?

[@cubing3211]

Do we even know who this 4chan is?

[@souptime8635]

4 guys named Chan

[@minecraftermad]

no it's the hacker group anonymous

[@Key_Mind]

No, he is only a system administrator.

[@xenontesla122]

Soup Time Supposedly, one of them is a stuntman who sometimes fights with random objects.

[@beenaalavudheen4343]

*Gives Anonymous 4chan poster credit in a mathematical paper* Ah... I see you're a man of culture as well.

[@quintopia]

I'm sure they'd love to know who it really is (wouldn't we all?), but that's obviously impossible.

[@MrFreakHeavy]

Can you imagine writing a paper and citing this one? "Anon _et al._ 2018"

[@Luckyyshot]

@@MrFreakHeavy That would be hilarious. I will do my absolute best to somehow find a use for this in my next semester just to cite it!

[@SukoSeiti]

@@MrFreakHeavy please. Anon et al, "the Haruhi Problem", 4chan/a/, 2011.

[@QuantumRipple]

The hacker “4chan” et al

[@Iamtheoneandonly01]

People on 4chan be out there schooling mathematicians, meanwhile on Facebook people argue over 2+2(6-1)

[@oliverabbott9212]

@@scran How'd you figure that? I got 83

[@dragohammer6937]

@@oliverabbott9212 it goes like this: 2 + 2(6-1) 2 + 2(5) 2 + 10 12. you always solve parenthesis before anything else, then you solve exponents/radicals(which are kinda the same thing), then multiplication/division(again , kinda the same thing), then addition/subtraction last. if theres [] or {}, you solve () -> [] -> {} -> nothing. and if theres multiple parethensis you just solve from innermost to outermost.

[@IAm-zo1bo]

what the fk i thought 2+2+6-1 i'm too stupid for this

[@madness1206]

KZbin """education"""

[@Aurora-oe2qp]

23, obviously

[@lucadivine3862]

There's an important lesson here: if you wanna get people interested in math, you just need to show them how it applies to stuff they already care about. (Oh, and if you wanna motivate people, anime girls will do the trick. That's another lesson to take away here.)

[@alniseschrenkek6348]

Both are not news, tho.

[@commenteroftruth9790]

I didnt see any examples of how this helps anyone. The anime thing made 0 sense and was a waste of time with nothing gained, so what is this math used for? Programming?

[@syintigs5543]

Commenter Of Truth It’s apparently a possible answer to a 25 year old math problem. As for what it is used for, I have no idea. But I’m assuming that we will eventually find a use like most things in pure math.

[@Zarrx]

@@commenteroftruth9790 "The anime thing made 0 sense and was a waste of time with nothing gained" That sounds like the definition of 4chan, discussing and arguing over pointless non-impactful things.

[@commenteroftruth9790]

@@Zarrx That could apply to life

[@yukiko1212]

I can't believe anime did math.

[@AkiSan0]

you must be quite young and not familiar with 4chan..

[@yukiko1212]

​@@AkiSan0 My comment was a joke, I know what 4chan is, I browse it occasionally

[@minecraftermad]

@@yukiko1212 ayy was watching ur shitpost tier music edits jsut yesterday

[@yukiko1212]

@@minecraftermad Let's not, shall we?

[@minecraftermad]

saying no on the internet = please! more!

[@Cypekeh]

This 4chan guy is weird. He or she must be very intelligent, as they're both dangerous hacker and a great mathematician... Damn

[@cameron7374]

@@Nilguiri It would be the second coming. While Jesus probably didn't magically turn water into wine or anything like that, he did exist.

[@julie6464]

@@thehen101 wow... not sure if you are trolling or being serious

[@Nilguiri]

@@cameron7374 And yet there is no evidence to show that he ever existed. There are no contemporary writings about him. I'm not saying that he definitely didn't exist-I am agnostic on the matter-just that there is no evidence for it. It is by no means as certain as you claim. And even if he did exist, the supernatural claims, as you mention, are obviously pure fantasy.

[@cameron7374]

@@Nilguiri Well, confirming that anyone 2000 years ago really existed is pretty difficult. As far as I know, the best we have to prove that Jesus was a real person are some Roman texts about his followers, about 50-100 years after he died. And I think it's far more likely that he did exist and the stories in the bible were written 'about him' instead of people just making him up and writing that extensively about him as if he was real.

[@Nilguiri]

@@cameron7374 Agreed, although people who claim that "he definitely existed" are mistaken. It is far from certain-it's not impossible but I remain unconvinced but willing to change my mind if further evidence is found. I won't hold my breath. But as I mentioned, even he if did exist, that is no reason to believe the far-fetched supernatural claims about him. Cheers.

[@nullanon5716]

Imagine being so self confident you do something amazing and post it anonymously because you don’t care

[@josketobben]

it's a lifestyle

[@floydgella7669]

That's pretty much most 4chan users

[@patstaysuckafreeboss8006]

I wonder how many Isaac Newtons walk among us who just don't give a damn about trying or changing the world and they don't let anyone know they're geniuses

[@StarboyXL9]

@@patstaysuckafreeboss8006 They are everywhere. They are legion. And filth like the vast majority of humanity do not deserve the scraps of wisdom that fall from their tongues like spittle.

[@everydayuntilyoulikeit1501]

@@StarboyXL9 lmao

[@Smoothbluehero]

4Chan solves esoteric math puzzles while Reddit defames white kids for smirking, and Tumblr bans porn. Okay, this is epic

[@11metalfan]

+The coo - king Ricardo would be proud

[@Etelvinicius]

That's one of the differences between "wild" free speech platforms and political echo chambers: being unregulated can sometimes lead to innovative thinking.

[@Etelvinicius]

@The coo - king Exactly my point.

[@PersimmonHurmo]

@The coo - king you were roasted by the universe

[@__-fu5se]

>4chan is political hugbox for snowflakes like me Hmmm, I wonder what shitposting board you could /pol/sibly be from...

[@Cyranek]

thank the lord for that fix at 12:10, was driving me crazy

[@AlienLee]

I felt the same

[@theimmux3034]

cyranek

[@Bigman-ee5fk]

Why are you everywhere

[@ChristianTheChicken]

You knew what he meant

[@somtimesieat2411]

where are you not?

[@damienw4958]

Phew, that arrow got fixed! Almost had to make a comment about that Parker Arrow. Oh, wait...

[@jmv333]

I was freaking out about it so scrolled down to the comments to see if someone else noticed, v happy to hear it's gonna get fixed

[@MattiasDooreman]

I came here to comment on the Parker Arrow, but it was corrected

[@MarceldeJong]

But it wasn't a Parker arrow, it was a Houston arrow. But I know what you mean

[@sethbettwieser]

Literally was about to comment about it.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Thought the same. How could a pair of mathematicians to such a mistake. But they got it.

[@Cr42yguy]

I loved the correction of the Parker arrow that bugged me.

[@Nekrumorfiini1]

The old Parker triangle.

[@glasjanus]

At 12:10

[@chessthecat]

This is legit fascinating. I got chills when Robin said "an anonymous poster gave a solution that was better than anything in the literature." Amazing.

[@someguyontheinternet8063]

anon beats normie mathematicians with his austismathematics wonderful

[@meganaxelia]

woah pepe... THAS RACIS!

[@ligninman]

@Comfy Diatribe and its beautiful

[@felixjohnson3874]

4 years, 1.2 thousand likes, and only 2 replies

[@NoriMori1992]

The heck is "austismathematics"

[@clouds-rb9xt]

@@NoriMori1992it means he's an autist who likes math, ez

[@sk8rdman]

Super permutations hold a special place in my heart because I when I came upon an equivalent problem a few years ago, I couldn't find any information on it, and subsequently spent several days trying to solve it for myself. In fact, when I found the formula that you guys presented at the beginning, I thought I had solved it. Unfortunately, I hadn't, but at least I gave it a go. People may never stop making Parker Square jokes, but the sentiment of having tried and failed and still being proud of the work is an excellent one to have. That's part of what I admire so much about Matt's work. He values the effort put towards a project more than end result.

[@ayernee]

it would be even better if you told the story behind the haruhi problem

[@rq4740]

Matt just doesn't want to be outed as the weeb that we all know he is

[@petrabanjarnahor229]

@@rq4740 That's not very cultured of him as a mathematician.

[@sebastianthor546]

3blue1brown sneaking in at the bottom of the patreon list.

[@juggernaut93]

I was going down in the comment section just to write this.

[@thehen101]

seaking

[@pusiona]

thehen101 yeah, it’s that fish that evolves from Goldeen

[@ToddHowardWithAGun]

What is the shortest possible list of patrons that contains all the patreon lists of every math youtuber?

[@breckr1121]

@@thehen101 oh yeah yeah

[@shadowsfromolliesgraveyard6577]

All these quacks out there claiming the only reason their pet theories aren't accepted is that academia is dogmatic and insular, but here we have an anonymous 4chan poster leading the field.

[@cutecommie]

To be fair, it took 7 years.

[@Osama-Bon-Jovi-01]

@@cutecommie 7 years for them to pay attention

But will anon get credit? (I mean, he's credited as anon, but like, a real name?)

[@eduardopupucon]

@ he didn't use a tripcode or something so it's going to be impossible to prove it was him that made the proof even if someone appears claiming is the anon that made the proof

[@rq4740]

So what we need then is a proof of proof? His proof proofs?

[@ggwp638BC]

To give slightly more context of why that was even being discussed in 4chan: There is this highly popular classic anime called The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (yes, that one with the dance). This show was released in a particular order during the original TV airing, as to make sure the climax of the story was closer to the end, ignoring chronological events. But then for the DVD release the studio decided to change the order of the episodes to the cronological one. Not satisfied, in the re-releases, there was one with the first half chronological and the second as released in the TV airing, and then another airing where the made the opposite with the first half in release and second half in chronological. Not just that, but fans made their own watch orders as to highlight some aspect of the show. From this some guy asked how long would it take to watch ALL possible combinations and the discussion escalated from that.

[@storyxx]

Plot twist: He is actually writing on a TV screen.

[@Waitwhat469]

Honestly the way he hesitated, I was just waiting for him to say that he was just going to find some paper instead of drawing on the tv lol

[@bearcubdaycare]

I had assumed that it was programmed to display marks where he drew with a stylus, but then he appeared to just write on the glass with a marker.

[@Donmegamuffin]

If the 4chan minimum holds true, it should take ~4.286 million years to watch the super permutation of Haruhi season 1...?

[@badsyntax173]

You could just watch the superpermutations of the repeating episode

[@romajimamulo]

At least. 4chan found the minimum

[@Robert_McGarry_Poems]

The top comment pinned: "the hairy guy in the video" says that he found a new lower bound.

[@Redspl]

_You like dreams, right?_

[@viliml2763]

@@Robert_McGarry_Poems So it's actually 4.286 million years + 24 minutes

[@内田ガネーシュ]

Like Gusteau always said “Not everyone can be a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.”

[@KantFromEC]

/sci/ is hard at work solving difficult mathematical problems and theories meanwhile on /k/... Can I fill an artillery shell with oxygen and use it as a scuba tank?

[@jtrev492]

Hello fellow kommando, have you tested out your gas mask with homemade chlorine gas?

[@hubbabubba5177]

@@jtrev492 started off making the gas and fell asleep. Oh well, I'll try again tomorrow

[@Walter_]

Get a shovel (hihi), and (XD) hit the tip of the shell (AAAA DXDDDDD) But don't forget to (X) stream (D) it (LMaaa) because we want to watch you succeed (OOOOOO)

[@theangrycheeto]

Meanwhile on /pol/... I hear there are lovely mosques in New Zealand. Anyone visiting there interested in doing an IRL stream on Facebook?

[@hop-skip-ouch8798]

@@theangrycheeto What happened?

[@SpaghettiToaster]

Perelman realized ArXiv isn't anonymous enough so he's graduated to 4chan trying to make sure he'll never win a prize again.

[@stevethea5250]

Try this definition from the WR dictionary: cause: 2 a principle or movement which one is prepared to defend or advocate. A "movement" can often mean both the principle and the people and the organization taken together to promote a particular viewpoint or course of action. Uppermost in my mind is the principle that is being promoted -- but without people and a little organization, nothing's going to get done. :)

[@mackenziepm]

3:22 "I brought some E's..." pulls out cardboard, Robin genuinely disappointed looking.

[@stevemonkey6666]

Imagine going to that school with those squeaky blackboards all day

[@philp4684]

And on top of that, the lights reflecting off it must make it a nightmare for students trying to read from it. Who came up with such a terrible idea?

[@C2H5OHist]

Now imagine displaying a video on the same board.

[@philp4684]

​@@C2H5OHist "AAARRGH. WHO WROTE ALL OVER MY EXPENSIVE NEW TV?!?!?"

[@kdawg3484]

Hell, I wasn't going to be able to make it through this video if they hadn't found a good marker. Between the squeakiness and total unreadability, there is zero doubt there are students right now in classrooms with these boards hiding the good pens, so their teacher is unable to teach the lesson. Good luck, guys; don't get caught.

[@C2H5OHist]

@kdawg3484 it's a touch screen so the best pen to use is your finger.

[@MK73DS]

Super perms is still too long to say, why not just s.perms ? ... Oh !

[@volfegan]

I see by your naming convention you would fit perfectly as a JAVA programmer.

[@tonksdude]

@@volfegan lmao

[@GeneralPet]

@@volfegan I mean it's not really just a naming convention, he went from just a variable to an object procedure.

[@SilphBoss]

Superms

[@alniseschrenkek6348]

MK73DS Straight outta 4chan.

[@itsevilbert]

18:53 Superpermutations do have application in security testing, similar to fuzzing. The De Bruijn sequence was used in Samy Kamkar's opensesame (and the earlier rolljam).

[@NilesBlackX]

18:50 "superpermutations aren't the most useful applied bit of mathematics" - citation needed my friend, there are more applications for this than you can imagine. For instance, efficient 'flattening' of a neural network currently uses untailored compression. Having a way to reliably generate the superpermutation of a network with n nodes would allow for the creation of a universally efficient compression standard, which would allow deployed models to be e.g. embedded to a standardized ASIC. That would be *huge*, and immediately worth billions to, among others, Google. This isn't possible or feasible currently because of _this_ missing math.

[@Israel220500]

That's an application, but still not the most useful bit in mathematics. I mean, you can't compare that to calculus or linear algebra which literally have applications everywhere.

[@NilesBlackX]

@@Israel220500 if we're being reductionist we may as well jump straight to integers. Or constructs in general, that's certainly closer to being the most useful bit of mathematics. I think what was implied by the original statement wasn't that "there exist more useful things" which is universally true, but rather that he viewed it as 'not really a useful thing', which is the interpretation of his original statement that my comment was in response to.

[@adeshkantha7034]

The best application is it tells you the fastest way to watch every episode of an anime in every possible order

[@NilesBlackX]

@@adeshkantha7034 ☝️

[@agilsaelan]

Thank you. I will look it up

[@drulli6]

Imagine being this guy that posted that 8 years ago watching this video realizing that it was infact him who solved something interesting in 2011 probably without knowing it.

[@sploofmcsterra4786]

Superpermutations seem like a nice addition to game design. Guaranteeing every event is different is something Superpermutations could allow.

[@zmaj12321]

The Haruhi problem, a classic

[@night7826]

Lol

[@TimeStrike12]

The one true god Haruhi has given mankind a gift

[@markanderson4689]

two more likes to 69, i know we can do it

[@thepixelpr3dator207]

@@markanderson4689 i did it

[@kenshios4ma]

All I hope is that the Anon who posted this sees this video, knows that it was them who did it, chuckles and then goes off to solve other obscure mathematical problems relating to anime. Godspeed Anon.

[@Anonymouthful]

Imagine a bunch of scientist combing 4chan for stuff like this 24 / 7

[@siriuslydont]

Implying the scientist isn't already a 4chan user

[@Statusinator]

Guess what every intelligence agency has been doing.

[@Carhill]

@ 12:10 - Thank you for correcting that arrow, it was bugging me the whole damn time.

[@Patnik86]

commented before reading comments again, bugged me too XD

[@MrxstGrssmnstMttckstPhlNelThot]

So, who is this modern anonymous anime-loving Ramanujan?

[@hh8302k]

who is this "four chan?"

[@romajimamulo]

No one will ever know, most likely

[@ClockworkRBLX]

@@hh8302k CNN told me it was the name of some hacker.

[@infinitydude7305]

possibly some janitor in a university

[@metalpachuramon]

The hacker known as 4chan

[@kniter]

this is what Moot died for

[@bumfricker2487]

literally who?

[@canadariots1139]

@@bumfricker2487 creator

[@bumfricker2487]

@@canadariots1139 what?

[@dieselkeough4613]

@@bumfricker2487 god

[@YehudiNimol]

@@bumfricker2487 he created 4chins

[@AaronPM55]

>My professor coming in with graded homework and exams. 1:58

[@Roescoe]

The flashbacks...

[@asymptotex8662]

I am SO GLAD you included that short correction at 12:15 it was driving me mad, and I know you only included it because you knew SOMEONE would be mad if you didn't.

[@geekjokes8458]

i like how you put the patreon names on reverse alphabetical order just so that the last was *3blue1brown*

[@KhanhNguyen-kq4ch]

GeekJokes how is that doing any good

[@aplavins]

Thanks for fixing that arrow... and filming it.

[@barbieroberts6694]

There is a use for superpermutations - opening combination locks. If you don't have to reset between attempts or hit "enter" at any point, you can just use the shortest sequence. Sadly, there are expensive locks that fall to this attack. At least there was 20 years ago when I learned how to do it.

[@amiwatchesyt]

You can actually apply it when programming with restricted memory. You have the shortest list of all possible permutatipons which can be used one way or another

[@optie5]

They literally named it "Haruhi Problem" after the anime.

[@uberfeel]

4chan: smart people acting like they are idiots. Twitter: idiots acting like they are smart people.

[@allconservativesarepedophiles]

Yes, this. 4chaners act dumber than they really are (quite intelligent) to get under people's skin. To be assholes. I do that too and I enjoy it, so I understand.

[@gojiralegendary4009]

Hate to say but it's true...4chan is god

[@jamescraig1667]

The sped up portions actually warm my heart. Two astounding mathematicians just doing what they love, together, and sharing it with the world. Just spectacular.

[@rafagd]

So, if I ever cite this paper, would the author be Poster, A. 4. et al?

[@patrickwienhoft7987]

There's a nice discussion about how everyone cited the original author incorrectly in the first place: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18292061 A few people mention that this may have been on purpose as non-academic sources aren't well received for peer-review. So I'd probably cite the original author in the correct way to give 4chan the credit it deserves.

[@gormster]

I’m pretty sure the standard way to cite anonymous sources is just (Anon.) but that said it would be pretty weird to see (Anon. et al).

[@MegaTenser]

@@patrickwienhoft7987 Wow, reading through that discussion is quite bizarre. There are academics suggesting you wouldn't want to cite the work because it is not peer reviewed. That makes no sense whatsoever. If you didn't stand by the previous work, you wouldn't be using it in your own research. There are some practical issues in this case because you have an anonymous source on a forum post that could disappear or change web address at any time.

[@Hazardou5]

@@gormster citing a 4chan user as (Anon.) is actually quite fitting imho ^^

[@marinamaddox6285]

You are easily my favourite math communicator on youtube. Thanks for what you do.

[@5thearth]

Shout out for Greg Egan: his Orthogonal trilogy is both a good story and a fascinating universe with a completely worked out physics built on an altered principle of spacetime.

[@miltonpound763]

I never get tired of Matt and his friends simply brute forcing answers.

[@connorwilliams3451]

"I've brought some D's" -Matt Parker 2019 Mathematicians apparently like it when you bring the D Matt...

[@Mp57navy]

After that he gave him no F's. What a C.

[@VirtuelleWeltenMitKhan]

Oh man Connor, oh ..... you

[@PowerSpirit50]

Matt D. Parker

[@fyss2346]

"I didn't bring any F's" lets get some f's in the chat bois

[@markanderson4689]

F

[@yomama5656]

F

[@kabard]

F

[@EternalDensity]

F

[@DandyDude]

F

[@alefnull]

12:09 this one tiny moment in editing completely relieved my OCD-riddled brain after seeing him initially draw the arrow pointing in the wrong direction. thank you, thank you, thank you for including this shot.

[@kentslocum]

This is fascinating stuff! The way that these people find new ways to think about old problems blows my mind.

[@OrangeC7]

Well it seems like anime, science fiction, and 4chan just host the perfect kinds of minds to figure out superpermutations.

[@macewindu210]

Bet these guys can't triforce

[@vivitsa6215]

@@JoosepP-uh1zt ∆ ∆∆

[@vfwh]

Love the anti-climax of the answer to "so how did you solve the 872 length?" all excited and expecting some amazing insight into a mathematician's brain. When the answer comes as "well I downloaded this program from the internet, ran it and when I woke up it gave me the solution", you can feel the drop in energy in the room...

[@Jyukenmaster95]

6:27 "There's a numberphile video where James says someone found 872. You are that someone" "I am that someone" Wow, you had a celebrity guest :O

[@mcdonalds5972]

"So how do you think your proof for lower bounds of superpermutations will help mathematics?" "Mathematics?"

[@dirm12]

Poster et al., 2019 Is there a formal method for predicting how many new mathematical proofs will be posted to messaging boards before publishing in formal literature, and when the literature will be overtaken by online proof posting?

[@core2zero]

it took 8 years for this one, the bar is quite low

[@qschroed]

How is there no one talking about the remarkable way, this man found to turn this permutation problem into one that can be solved by a TSP algorithm!

I, on the other hand, was expecting them to talk about the complexity of TSP.

[@patrickwienhoft7987]

Well, TSP is NP-complete. A lot of problems (i.e. all problems in NP, which includes problems in P, which is most of our relevant problems) can be reduced to it and since TSP is rather simple it often comes naturally. However I have to agree that the reduction was extremely nice and easy in the this case.

[@quintopia]

Perhaps because it's rather obvious? I mean, we'd much rather see a hard problem reduced to an easy problem than to another hard problem.

[@zorod5475]

Did we ever get a result for the 3 sided dice?

[@AGoldSoldier]

zorod I’m curious as well. I had talked to a friend about the idea and was hoping for a result to show them

[@matejlieskovsky9625]

I tried getting some data and it seems to be too reliant on how you define a random roll.

[@JohnDlugosz]

As I commented originally, I think there is no answer as it depends on the friction and trajectory, so you have to include the specific materials of the table and dice, _and_ toss them in a uniform manner (that is, throwing nearly vertically upwards vs bowling across the table).

[@ALifeOfWine]

Do you mean a 3 sided coin? Because a 3 sided dice should be relatively easy to make.

[@klystron2010]

Put 1, 2 and 3 on two sides each.

[@fareedal-bandar2953]

5:56 Matt literally has no F's to give.

[@hermdude]

That Anonymous 4chan poster may very well be the real life Makise Kurisu.

[@PassionPopsicle]

"This just in!" Also: "We filmed this in October" Matt Parker has the best sense of humour 😂

[@Articulo-Mortis]

Thank you for fixing it at @12:15 it was driving me nuts.

[@TheSmegPod]

didn't think I'd be watching a Matt Parker video about Haruhi Suzumiya today but here we are

[@joeyhinds6216]

Plot twist: Anonymous 4chan user = Greg Egan

[@Nyerguds]

You get slight minus points for not mentioning the origin of the term "Haruhi problem". The anime series "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" was infamous for having its episodes in a seemingly random non-chronological order. The DVD release offered it in a different order, which _also_ wasn't the chronological one. So the "Haruhi problem" seems to be a joke of the "how far can we take this?" type. ( I just looked up the chronological order right away and only watched it that way :p )

[@pouncebaratheon4178]

Greg Egan, the author mentioned in the video, published Permutation City 25 years ago. Glad to see he still has a healthy interest in combinatorics.

[@otakuribo]

But did we ever definitively decide on the proper order to watch all 16 episodes of Season 1 of _The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya_ ? I won't live long enough to watch through a superpermutation of every possible viewing order.

[@rafagd]

Proper order is release order. It gets pretty boring otherwise, as everything happens in the first 5 episodes and then they just goof around for the rest of the season.

[@otakuribo]

@@rafagd I bought the box set in 2008-ish and the series made a lot more sense (?!) when I learned years later that pretty much every episode after the main cast was introduced were non-chronological. I was referring to that original 4chan post; it's been covered before by Quanta magazine and others. It just so happened to involve anime, and one that I liked, so both my inner math nerd and my inner weeb were interested. :) The plot of _Haruhi_ revolves around illusions, mindscapes, "is reality a simulation?" and time travel among anime trope deconstruction and other surreal nonsense, so I'd agree, basically anything goes.

[@rafagd]

It does make more sense if you watch chronologically, but the big events are all crammed at the start. :)

[@KingHalbatorix]

Watch it release order first time, chronological order second if you have trouble understanding it. Real men watch all of endless eight at least once.

[@ghosty918]

The proper viewing order is release order and then followed by chronological. It doubles the amount of content to watch but gives the best of both worlds.

[@avj_curvebreaker]

took me like one minute to figure this was about haruhi lmao

[@psteknyo]

"It'll take a while" "I brought some E's" This is how you get a party started.

[@Username-ky3lr]

Who else got this in their recommended after they watched the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya?

[@Zarrx]

huh interesting

[@night7826]

But the question remains, in what order did you watch it?

[@Username-ky3lr]

@@night7826 I watched it the original way because I wanted to feel the confusion viewers got when initially watching it.

[@night7826]

@@Username-ky3lr haha I see, I watched in the chronological order, got kinda boring to me within the first 3 episodes. This anime wasn't for me. Or Maybe next time I'll also watch it in the broadcast order.

[@Username-ky3lr]

@@night7826 Yeah, watch it in broadcast order.

[@thebackofdoctormanhattanshead]

That anon is now kicking themselves for not using a tripcode sooo hard lol

[@mdunkman]

What if their number was a superpermutation? I didn’t check, and I can’t be bothered to check.

[@TheAdziK]

@@mdunkman 17:37 n!+(n-1)!+(n-2)!+n-3, it's a lower bound, while n!+(n-1)!+(n-2)!+(n-3)!+n-3 is the upper bound

[@thebackofdoctormanhattanshead]

@@mdunkman You mean the length of a supermutation?

[@cutecommie]

@@mdunkman 3751197 is not a superpermutation of anything.

[@gododoof]

I think anon is proud.

[@incredebile]

Click baited into learning some thing, now that's pedagogy

[@mfaizsyahmi]

When The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi gets so meta mathematicians around the globe are still finding the most efficient way to watch its episodes in all possible order. This is beyond mathematics.

[@Assault_Butter_Knife]

Absolute legend. Godspeed anonymous 4chan poster

[@StarboyXL9]

They need to put 4chan in charge of the Space Program. We'll be on Mars by the end of the month.

[@-.-...---7]

And how is that gonna help us watch anime?

[@crusaderking8277]

@@-.-...---7 Run the space program and eventually lead to harvesting and/or research of dark matter and other space goods resources. Take that research into dark matter and such, turn it into an energy/computing source one way or another. Take dedicated amounts of this energy and put it into systems that can automatically judge what makes a good anime, and forge them without human input. An endless source of good anime. Ez.

[@FPSGuy100]

Put 4chan in charge of the space program and we’ll have a white ethnostate on the moon.

[@mortak6307]

@@FPSGuy100 >this

[@wolbobus2130]

If 4chan was put in charge of the country we'd either die fiery deaths or experience interplanetary travel within a decade

[@RoadsideCookie]

Someone will look it up and point it out in the comments? Taking us for granted I see 😂

[@standupmaths]

Every day I stop to reflect how lucky I am to have you all.

[@RoadsideCookie]

@@standupmaths We think the same of you!

[@LUchesi]

The research says D and E, My assumption would be that since the second half both opens and closes with either A and B or A and C in the original, then it doesn't complicate the containment as one might see if you switched seats with the driver in a car on the way back from the golden globes or something. Especially if other people/food are in the limo. Though I wouldn't be surprised if other types of switches could be made on other N's

[@GenralG7]

There is literally nothing in this video that I can understand

[@mgd8867]

You can understand 4chan being a weird place where anything can happen

[@weridplusho]

You and me both. I'm so lost.

[@bobsnob9246]

You have to watch haruhi

[@jtrev492]

@@bobsnob9246 kek

[@saradanhoff6539]

Okay so the gist of it is trying to find all the different permutations, that is variations, a set with given data can be viewed as in terms of the order you evaluate each member of the set. So they graph the set, like you saw him do, and use weights to represent pathways that "count more". Once you represent the set that way it just breaks down to the classic Travelling Salesman problem (about walking a path between points, super wikiable). Then they just pumped that into a computer and had it look for patterns in the different possible solutions for the shortest length of a given set size.

[@dattebenforcer]

Anon always delivers.

[@kundogb]

I won't lie, I was quite impressed when you said he works in the Flourish website!

[@Olect]

I have been working on chess permutations. I know this is an old problem that is Sisyphean, but it is fun. I already did something with the DNA and RNA base-pairs. As always, great video and cool research.

[@ZonkoKongo]

4chan with the science/math board consisting of 0.999... = 1 debates...

[@daverapp]

The thing about 4chan is that it is neither full of geniuses or full of idiots; it's full of lots of people pretending to be both

[@donkosaurus]

there are two envelopes when one has twice as much cash in as the other. you open one and it contains $10, do you switch?

[@ZonkoKongo]

@@donkosaurus nah 10$ seems fine

[@heisvi9317]

Or the "you have 3 boxes, one with 2 gold balls, 1 with 2 silver balls and 1 with one of each. If you choose a random box and pull out a gold ball, what is the probability that you will pull out another gold ball from the same box" question

[@OriginalPiMan]

@@heisvi9317 I haven't seen that problem before; is the answer 0.67? (Two thirds) My approach is to say that there are three different gold balls I could have picked first, and two of them have a gold ball as a neighbour. That I've narrowed it to one of two boxes feels like a red herring.

[@manoelguidialvares6903]

He sounds like an engineer: "How did you solve this optimization?" "Well alot of ppl did some solvers for this type of problem, so I downloaded one of them and used it" LITERALLY me

[@navaneethmnambiar2577]

It says in the video that it was filmed in October. Why must it have been released in January after such a long while?

[@standupmaths]

I’ve just been too busy to get it finished. Entirely my fault.

[@larrylentini5688]

A cursory explanation of superpermutations preceding the video would have been nice for those of us who haven't been following the saga. I didn't have a clue what you were talking about without googling it and I know this guy can do a better job of explaining math than the first page of google.

[@tomwallen7271]

I love Numberphile and videos like this because it just shows that mathematics (and even their unsolved problems) are really just curious people messing around and trying to come up with some clever solution. Not too much different from any normies trying to solve a puzzle or a game, but just.... using a bit of code and maths to do it.