2009年11月26日 星期四

Log Is Everywhere

今日聽seminar時忽發奇想,不如在這裏玩一個遊戲(要大家參與的)。數學上有很多重要的函數,其中一個就是logarithm(這裏不管是還是都可以)。這個函數涉及的範疇科目包括數學、物理、化學、計算機科學、各種工程學、天文學、金融等等。我想大家可以在這裏接力每人列三個logarithm出現的地方,看看可以去到幾長。

我先開始吧:

1)

2) 一種不穩定的物質進行radioactive decay。若它在k秒內質量由1變成,則該物質的half-year為

3) 絕大部分在現實使用將數字排序(sorting)的算法(algorithm),其運算時間為

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規則:每人只可以列最多三個,但少一些是可以的(就是說你只想到一個,就列一個吧)。

6 則留言:

  1. Hyperbolic Geometry:
    metric of the half plane

    Applied maths:
    Logarithmic spiral

    Thermodynamics or information theory:
    Entropy and Stirling's approximation

    Optics:
    Optical thickness and skin depth

    Astronomy:
    Magnitude of stars
    (and hence in general,
    Stevens' power law)
    Palermo Technical Impact Hazard Scale, or Torino Scale

    Cartography:
    Mercator projection

    Accounting or Auditing:
    Benford's law

    Music:
    frequency of pitches

    basically whenever you have an exponential, you are associated with a log

    P.S.
    There's a matrix inversion method described in Numerical Recipe. The computational cost of which scales as N^{log_2 7}, compare to LU in N^3

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  2. play game, u need to read the rule first :)

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  3. Prime Number Theorem
    number of primes < x ~ x/ln(x)

    Fractals
    In calculating the fractal dimension by "box dimension"

    Thermodynamics/Statistical Mechanics
    Boltzmann entropy, von Neumann entropy
    (application:Clausius-Clapeyron equation, Chemical Reaction Rate, ...)

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