[Updated 20 September 2018 with some more Thoughts at the end]
Impressions from Burning Man 2018
I just returned from Burning Man 2018. Here are my videos, photos, and thoughts...
Videos
Photos
Some highlights...
Thoughts
It was mental. Here are some impressions and observations.Math Camp
As summarised in this nice article there was a "Math Camp" located at "3.14, P". We enjoyed listening to ad hoc presentations on topics such as "the mathematics of the doubling cube in Backgammon". But the highlight was a presentation by a PhD student from Canada (his area of expertise was probability theory and Monte Carlo analysis) who explained the (counterintuitive) strategy of using a random-number-generator to beat the 50:50 odds of guessing a coin-toss !Also, at the "Math Camp" we mentioned our longstanding surprise with the fact that the perimeter of an ellipse cannot be written in simple "closed-form" (unlike for a circle: 2 times Pi times radius), but instead requires the use of elliptic integrals. Discussion ensued, and we acquiesced: accepting that since the elliptic integral can be computed to any desired precision, it is as good as a simple "closed form". Same goes for the error function or the Gaussian distribution etc. So, all good : )
747 Art Car
One of the most impressive Art Cars was the Boeing 747 partial fuselage re-purposed as a dance venue:
