Von Neumann's Elephant

[nth_order]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann%27s_elephant

[playingalong]

Thinking in software dev terms. It says four parameters and then the solution provided in the Wiki starts with "let's use complex numbers" and lands with what the normies call 8 numbers.

I am pretty sure they can come up with some other math concept which packs 8 numbers into one, not four.

[azornathogron → playingalong]

> I am pretty sure they can come up with some other math concept which packs 8 numbers into one, not four.

Yes, those are called octonions.

Though I don't know if anyone has tried to use one to draw an elephant.

[olddustytrail → azornathogron]

Surely if you're using octonions you have to draw a....squid! Or possibly some other cephalopod.

[canjobear]

How about just one parameter! https://pubs.aip.org/aip/adv/article/8/9/095118/22887/One-pa...

[nth_order → canjobear]

I enjoyed that a lot, thanks for sharing! Given arbitrary precision, the number of parameters becomes meaningless as a measure of model complexity, and even this one-parameter equation has infinite VC dimension.