Quantcast
Channel: Group Theory – Math ∩ Programming
Browsing index pages (22 articles)

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Socks, a matching game based on an additive combinatorics problem

Can you find a set of cards among these six, such that the socks on the chosen cards can be grouped into matching pairs? (Duplicate pairs of the same sock are OK) Spoilers If the cards are indexed as...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Two’s Complement and Group Theory

Before I discovered math, I was a first year undergrad computer science student taking Electrical Engineering 101. The first topic I learned was what bits and boolean gates are, and the second was the...

View Article


Modulus Switching in LWE

The Learning With Errors problem is the basis of a few cryptosystems, and a foundation for many fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) schemes. In this article I’ll describe a technique used in some of...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Hashing to Estimate the Size of a Stream

Problem: Estimate the number of distinct items in a data stream that is too large to fit in memory. Solution: (in python) import random def randomHash(modulus): a, b = random.randint(0,modulus-1),...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

A Quasipolynomial Time Algorithm for Graph Isomorphism: The Details

Update 2017-01-09: Laci claims to have found a workaround to the previously posted error, and the claim is again quasipolynoimal time! Updated arXiv paper to follow. Update 2017-01-04: Laci has posted...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman

So far in this series we’ve seen elliptic curves from many perspectives, including the elementary, algebraic, and programmatic ones. We implemented finite field arithmetic and connected it to our...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Connecting Elliptic Curves with Finite Fields

So here we are. We’ve studied the general properties of elliptic curves, written a program for elliptic curve arithmetic over the rational numbers, and taken a long detour to get some familiarity with...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

(Finite) Fields — A Primer

So far on this blog we’ve given some introductory notes on a few kinds of algebraic structures in mathematics (most notably groups and rings, but also monoids). Fields are the next natural step in the...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Elliptic Curves as Python Objects

Last time we saw a geometric version of the algorithm to add points on elliptic curves. We went quite deep into the formal setting for it (projective space ), and we spent a lot of time talking about...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Elliptic Curves as Algebraic Structures

Last time we looked at the elementary formulation of an elliptic curve as the solutions to the equation where are such that the discriminant is nonzero: We have yet to explain why we want our equation...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Elliptic Curves as Elementary Equations

Finding solutions to systems of polynomial equations is one of the oldest and deepest problems in all of mathematics. This is broadly the domain of algebraic geometry, and mathematicians wield some of...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Fixing Bugs in “Computing Homology”

A few awesome readers have posted comments in Computing Homology to the effect of, “Your code is not quite correct!” And they’re right! Despite the almost year since that post’s publication, I haven’t...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Rings — A Second Primer

Last time we defined and gave some examples of rings. Recapping, a ring is a special kind of group with an additional multiplication operation that “plays nicely” with addition. The important thing to...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Computing Homology

In our last post in this series on topology, we defined the homology group. Specifically, we built up a topological space as a simplicial complex (a mess of triangles glued together), we defined an...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Homology Theory — A Primer

This series on topology has been long and hard, but we’re are quickly approaching the topics where we can actually write programs. For this and the next post on homology, the most important background...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

The Fundamental Group — A Primer

Being part of the subject of algebraic topology, this post assumes the reader has read our previous primers on both topology and group theory. As a warning to the reader, it is more advanced than most...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Groups — A Second Primer

The First Isomorphism Theorem The meat of our last primer was a proof that quotient groups are well-defined. One important result that helps us compute groups is a very easy consequence of this...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Groups — A Primer

The study of groups is often one’s first foray into advanced mathematics. In the naivete of set theory one develops tools for describing basic objects, and through a first run at analysis one develops...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Optimally Stacking the Deck – Texas Hold ‘Em

Main Theorem: There exist optimal stackings for standard two-player Texas Hold ‘Em. A Puzzle is Solved (and then some!) It’s been quite a while since we first formulated the idea of an optimal...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

The Fundamental Theorem of Algebra (with Galois Theory)

This post assumes familiarity with some basic concepts in abstract algebra, specifically the terminology of field extensions, and the classical results in Galois theory and group theory. The...

View Article
Browsing index pages (22 articles)


Latest Images