Academia vs Business
by Jeff
Image text: Some engineer out there has solved P=NP and it's locked up in an electric eggbeater calibration routine. For every 0x5f375a86 we learn about, there are thousands we never see.
This comic is a flow chart defining what would happen if this person solved an impossible problem given to him and what would happen if he were in academia or in business. The argument seems to be here that Academia is much better than business, at least for the ego.
p=NP problem is one of the great unsolved problems in computer science. The Clay Mathematics Institute has a $1 million prize to the first person or group who solves it.
EDIT: As mentioned by just about everybody in the comments, 0x5f375a86 is the algorithm to approximate the solution to the square root of an unsigned floating number, also known as fast inverse square root. The solution uses an ingenious first approximation and the difficult problem was solved without any fanfare (like in the cartoon) for the game, Quake III Arena. Thanks everyone!
November 18th, 2009
Ya, but what is “every 0×5f375a86 we learn about” referring to?
November 18th, 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root
November 18th, 2009
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=0×5f375a86
He’s saying that for every amazing function that we know about, there’s thousands that someone’s come up with that do mundane things, and the worker who did it never received the credit or recognition for it.
For example, if someone had solved p=NP, they’d have been awarded a $1,000,000 prize. The alt text suggests someone has, but did it in a business setting instead of an academic setting, and thus it has gone unnoticed.
November 19th, 2009
It refers to this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root
This info should be included in the explaination.
November 19th, 2009
refers to a fast way of computing inverse square roots
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root
November 19th, 2009
This:
http://beyond3d.com/content/articles/8
November 20th, 2009
http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/8/
The hex number is from this algorithm for taking the inverse square root of a number. It uses an iterative algorithm but uses an ingenious first approximation to make the result tolerable after only one iteration.
November 20th, 2009
That’s some kind of magic value which John Carmac used in (I think) the original Quake to speed up (I think) inverse square root calculation by an incredible amount. His method only gives you an approximation, but for a game, that’s good enough.
Lots of “I think”s, it’s a while back and I’m a little vague on the subject, but it was something like this.
November 18th, 2009
It isn’t saying that academia is better for the ego. It’s saying that in the real world people don’t appreciate the difficulty of programming. Solving even the most complicated problem is viewed as only being as significant as synching outlook with a phone.
November 23rd, 2009
It’s even simpler than that.
In academia, the goal is the way. Elegant solution is much better than the straight and complicated solution. Even even if you don’t solve the problem, failures are also appreciated.
In business, the goal is the solution. Have it complicated, have it simple, have it full of bugs- as long as you have final solution.
This is why academia is reffered to as the ivory tower- you don’t have to actually solve a problem, you just need to have something new. This is why business is sometimes so frustrating- it is okay, and even preffered, to copy something that works, but you must solve the problem. Elegant failures or clumsy solutions- take your pick.
November 18th, 2009
0×5f375a86 is part of an ingenious algorithm to apporimate the square root of an unsigned floating number. This operation has numerous applications in computer algorithms and having a fast algorithm for it is therefore a pretty neat thing.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root (never mind that wikipedia gives the number as 0×5f3759df…)
November 18th, 2009
and the relevance to the comic is of course that the algorithm was first developed for a computer game “even though” it constituted kind of a breakthrough.
November 18th, 2009
For 0×5f375a86 you’ll want to look at this:
http://www.lomont.org/Math/Papers/2003/InvSqrt.pdf
November 18th, 2009
0×5f375a86 is about a cool piece of code found in the quake3 source, for doing 1/sqrt(x) quickly. It seems, though, that no one really knows who wrote the original code. Could have been from academia….
http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/8/
November 18th, 2009
I believe it is not “strictly” about programming. Having spent 30+ years in the business world, I can tell you there is little to no appreciation of the impossible. If you accomplish the impossible, you will simply be given additional work to do. No raise, no “Thank you,” and especially no grandstanding.
No, I’m not bitter. . . . why do you ask?
October 25th, 2010
I know what you mean. It may or may not be strictly about programming but I can assure you that (being a tech of one sort or another for about the same 30 years) I have created code that should have been immortalized in the Louvre due to its beauty and I got nary a grunt for the effort.
Two days later I would enable an email to be opened by installing a patch to the person’s email client and one would think that I saved the planet.
However, ten seconds after that we would be back to, “What have you done for this company lately?”
November 19th, 2009
The ‘0×5f375a86′ is a reference to John Carmack’s famous fast inverse square root function in Quake (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root#The_.22magic_number.22)
November 19th, 2009
http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/8/ – 0×5f375a86
November 19th, 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5f375a86
Magic number in an inverse-square-root approximation algorithm.
November 20th, 2009
You need to tell about the constant as well:
http://betterexplained.com/articles/understanding-quakes-fast-inverse-square-root/
November 21st, 2009
Well, I think the explanation of 0×5f375a86 is just a bit more complex than than the “John Carmack” algorithm. The magic number used by John Carmack in it’s code is in fact 0×5f3759df , the one used on the wikipedia page. I think xkcd refer to Chris Lomont paper http://www.lomont.org/Math/Papers/2003/InvSqrt.pdf which itself refer to the John Carmack code.
Chris Lomont ask himself why does the code works, and how the constant was first found. He described how does the code works, but failed to explain how the constant was found. During the process, he found that 0×5f375a86 was a slighly better magic number than the original one.
While Carmack can neither be labeled Academia or Business, Chris Lomont’s paper is clearly an academic paper. That’s why I think that xkcd note refer to Chris Lomont study.
Ho, and by the way, it appears that John Carmack is not the father of this code
http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/8/
It look like noone ever wrote this code, while every suspect remember that code, each one says he’s not the original author. Clearly similar like all the javascript code written between 1995 and 2005, only copied from other web sites, never written from scratch.
November 23rd, 2009
It’s a stand-alone complex ‸ฺ( ◑ܫ◐ )‸ฺ
December 8th, 2009
“The argument seems to be here that Academia is much better than business, at least for the ego.”
Not entirely true, but not entirely false as well. I would put it that, in the end its all about choosing the lesser of 2 ‘evils’, ahem!