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posted by n1 on Tuesday July 07 2015, @05:55AM   Printer-friendly
from the a-taurus-is-not-a-torus-but-it-can-make-donuts-in-a-car-park dept.

Topology isn't for everyone, but knowing the difference between your coffee cup and a doughnut is an essential workplace skill.

However, algebraic topology may be closer to us than you think. Drones, self-driving cars, and semi-autonomous AI are going to need it. And if you code, you're going to have to understand it. A little.

Unconventional mathematician Robert Ghrist rejects his field's "hippie aesthetic" in favor of suits and ties, loves medieval literature, reversed the usual way of teaching calculus in his popular MOOC, and is using one of mathematics' most abstract disciplines—algebraic topology—to solve real-world problems in robotics and sensor networks.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2015, @08:07AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2015, @08:07AM (#206029)

    Which would have the same mass, therefore same gravitational pull. Just because there is less space being taken up by the same mass does not make gravitational forces on other objects increase. If it were so, then a compressing a marshmallow would increase it's weight.

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2015, @08:22AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2015, @08:22AM (#206035)

    Err...its. Dammit Jim I'm a physicist not a writer!

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday July 07 2015, @10:31AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 07 2015, @10:31AM (#206053) Journal

    Which would have the same mass, therefore same gravitational pull.

    Outside. It is the centre of a blackhole where the singularity will lay.
    That's unlike the baricentre of a non-blackhole object, where the (integrated over the whole object volume) gravitational pull is zero.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2015, @02:55PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2015, @02:55PM (#206130)

      But for orbital mechanics, it doesn't matter what happens inside an object. All the planets are outside the sun and outside each other, and also the moons are outside their planets, and so on.

      Now strictly speaking, if what happens inside the object is asymmetric, it does matter; however for the planetary motion, the distance is so much larger than the size that you can neglect even that.

      Now what does matter is that gravitation is not exactly an 1/r² force even outside a perfectly spherical mass. As evidenced by the perihelion precession of Mercury.

      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday July 07 2015, @09:36PM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 07 2015, @09:36PM (#206231) Journal

        Now what does matter is that gravitation is not exactly an 1/r² force even outside a perfectly spherical mass

        ???? Have some links, please?

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford