Math-Frolic!: miscellany

Everybody seems to be doin' it, thinking about it, or just seein' and wonderin' about it! Longish piece from The Aperiodical on the latest online viral hit game, "Wordle":

https://aperiodical.com/2022/02/a-mathematicians-guide-to-wordle/

Though, like many, they compare it to the classic game "Mastermind," for at least a few of us oldsters it is even more reminiscent of "Jotto," my favorite (word) game growing up in the 50's and 60's, and still available in online versions (in fact, I find it a bit ironic and funny that some guy has suddenly made a ton of $$$ with Wordle, when Jotto has been quietly around for... well, a verrrry much longer time!)

As to "best" starting words for Wordle (a much discussed/theorized topic) I'm surprised that more people haven't settled on my two starters: "ADIEU" or "AUDIO" -- with these starters I rarely require more than 4 entries to get the target word, and probably at least 20% of the time 3 entries suffice (...but then I'm a pretty good guesser once I get it down to 4 or fewer word possibilities).

The 2nd word choice obviously is also very key to this game, but it is highly dependent on the results of the first word choice. Most often though, my second word will derive from these letters: r, s, t, y, either o or e, and one of the letters pinpointed by the 1st word guess; however, c, h, l, or n, may end up subbing for one of those choices in some instances; and the exact results of the first word choice may, more rarely, lead to still other letter choices for guess #2.

Now, with the NY Times purchasing Wordle for a tidy little sum, not certain what its future will be, for the game or its millions of addicts for whom Wordle is as much a start of the day as is coffee.

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ADDENDUM (2/6/22):

Having read a number of articles now touting various "best" starting words, pointing to the sort I used to use based upon letter frequency, I went back and tried that approach again, fairly successfully. Then I started trying unlikely starting words (zebra, radar, oozes, queen, excel, etc.), and what I'm largely discovering is that I can most often solve Wordles within 4 guesses by the careful, thoughtful selection of the 2nd and if needed 3rd guess, REGARDLESS of the first word choice! 'Rules' for the selection of the 2nd & 3rd word choice are what really need to be spelled out, though they are difficult because they are so dependent upon the the highly variable results of first word choice. Anyway, it all says something interesting about the redundancy and patterning of language.

Thursday, January 27, 2022

Spurious News/Correlations

H/T to Nathan Yau at "Flowing Data" for this one:

https://davidepstein.bulletin.com/everything-in-your-fridge-causes-and-prevents-cancers

Monday, January 17, 2022

From Bad Soup to Fuzzy Logic

As someone who has always found the “Law of the Excluded Middle” a bit nonsensical, some years ago I tried to find someone who could say a little about “fuzzy logic,” (as opposed to Aristotelian logic) only to be surprised by how few folks (mathematicians, at least) cared to address it (perhaps it falls more into the realm of philosophy, logic, or even computer science). Anyway, happy to see Jim Propp touching upon it (well, scratching the surface) in his latest piece here:

https://mathenchant.wordpress.com/2022/01/17/bad-soup/

The one sentence in the piece though that somewhat made me cringe is an almost offhand, parenthetical remark where Jim says "Well, you don’t always have to be careful, but when things are fuzzy, you’re aware that they’re fuzzy and you value the removal of the fuzz" (bold added). Actually, I think the problem that arises so often is that people DO NOT consciously or fully recognize "the fuzz" which is what allows them to speak so dichotomously (and strongly, but wrongly) about matters that are not so cut-and-dry as presented. Even if at some level there is 'awareness' of the fuzz, if it is not fully acknowledged, then it may tend to be ignored, swept under the mental carpet like so many dust bunnies (instead of genuinely removed). And while 'fuzziness' is a particular problem in the social/behavioral sciences it can also creep stealthily into math, engineering, and their outgrowths.

Friday, January 14, 2022

Math at MIT

Nice profile of an MIT math student:

https://news.mit.edu/2022/seeing-natural-world-through-mathematical-lens-david-darrow-0113

Thursday, January 13, 2022

Teens Learning Taxes

Frankly, I’ve always been surprised (i.e., disappointed) at how little really practical and needed life experience is taught in our high school years (taxes, mortgages, job hunting/applications, budgeting, banking, childrearing, civics/laws, traveling, health, etc.). We are left instead to largely learn about such matters by happenstance on our own.

But hey, here’s a start:

https://www.scaffoldedmath.com/2022/01/how-to-file-a-1040-tax-return.html