

Ask HN: What blew your mind? - bcjordan

What is something you have seen recently that...<p>...gave you the chills
...made you question what is possible
...made your mind race with new ideas?
======
pavelludiq
My mind is like a war zone, i blow it up very often. Most recently it was my
realization that is math easier(and much more fun) if you approach it as a
mystery to be solved, rather than a sport, like they teach you in school. Yes,
they do teach it like a sport: learn the skills, and then apply them to 4
problems in 40 minutes, each problem is harder than the previous, and if you
succeed, you get rewarded with a better grade. This is the most boring sport
ever! This is mind-blowing to a 19 year-old who spend 12 years in pointless
training of a sport that isn't fun, to get rewarded with something he doesn't
care about. Man, i feel cheated.

Other examples of recent mind explosions include:

when i "got" recursion last summer.

when i "got"(sort of)pointers in C.

when i "got" what trigonometry really is, now all i have to do is "get" it
itself.

when i found hacker news :D

------
tjic
It was 15 years or so back, but the Diagonalization Proof and Godel's
incompleteness theorem blew me away.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_diagonal_argument>

The first time I grokked relativity is also seared in my memory.

~~~
jgrahamc
Along similar lines... the proof of the Halting Problem:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem#Sketch_of_proof>

------
yummyfajitas
Compressed sensing. Specifically, Candes-Romberg-Tao's really simple
explanation of it.

<http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/math/pdf/0503/0503066v2.pdf>

------
bcjordan
The forgetting curve and its application in flashcard programs with spaced
repetition.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgetting_curve>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition>

------
hbien
Mostly the Sistine Chapel -
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistine_Chapel_ceiling>, but also a few other
art pieces as well.

One guy, did that, in 4 years ?! Makes me want to work harder/smarter to do
something amazing too.

------
oz
Leaving Christianity and realizing that I alone am responsible for my
destiny....my will be done...

~~~
cpr
Sounds like Lucifer's "non serviam".

------
david927
I hope it doesn't come across as narcissistic, but what I'm doing with my
startup.

~~~
bcjordan
What's that?

~~~
david927
It's a new way to structure and query data -- essentially a new type of
database, a variation of a graph database -- and the result is that anyone can
use it and model their data without realizing that's what they're doing. I
wish I could describe it in a sentence or two, but the upshot is that while
Google is great at finding text in web pages, a business or a schedule of
events doesn't want to be a web page -- it wants to be found. So by allowing
people to structure their own information, you get a different type of web
experience: show all babysitters near me who charge less than $6/hour, or send
a message to all co-workers who play squash. Things like that.

------
blogimus
I wake up in the morning and I'm still here.

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
How could it be that you wake up in the morning and you're not still here?

Just wondering ...

~~~
rms
<http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/06/qm-and-identity.html>

------
skwiddor
Plan 9 From Bell Labs

~~~
bcjordan
Plan 9 blew my mind as well.

Everything's a file!

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs>

