Eigenvalues and eigenvectors by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
Continuous spectrum (functional analysis) by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
Unlike the simple case of a matrix, in infinite dimensional vector spaces, the spectrum may be continuous.
The quintessential example of that is the spectrum of the position operator in quantum mechanics, in which any real number is a possible eigenvalue, since the particle may be found in any position. The associated eigenvectors are the corresponding Dirac delta functions.
Eigendecomposition of a matrix by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
Every invertible matrix can be written as:
where:
Note therefore that this decomposition is unique up to swapping the order of eigenvectors. We could fix a canonical form by sorting eigenvectors from smallest to largest in the case of a real number.
Intuitively, Note that this is just the change of basis formula, and so:
  • changes basis to align to the eigenvectors
  • multiplies eigenvectors simply by eigenvalues
  • changes back to the original basis
Eigendecomposition of a real symmetric matrix by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
The general result from eigendecomposition of a matrix:
becomes:
where is an orthogonal matrix, and therefore has .
So, by taking , we understand that two matrices being congruent means that they can both correspond to the same bilinear form in different bases.
Metric signature by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
Eigenvector by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
Hermitian operator by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
This is the possibly infinite dimensional version of a Hermitian matrix, since linear operators are the possibly infinite dimensional version of matrices.
There's a catch though: now we don't have explicit matrix indices here however in general, the generalized definition is shown at: en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hermitian_adjoint&oldid=1032475701#Definition_for_bounded_operators_between_Hilbert_spaces
Kronecker product by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
Dense and sparse matrices by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
A good definition is that the sparse matrix has non-zero entries proportional the number of rows. Therefore this is Big O notation less than something that has non zero entries. Of course, this only makes sense when generalizing to larger and larger matrices, otherwise we could take the constant of proportionality very high for one specific matrix.
Of course, this only makes sense when generalizing to larger and larger matrices, otherwise we could take the constant of proportionality very high for one specific matrix.
Bert Hubert by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
Co-founder of PowerDNS, an open source dNS implementation.
Homepage: berthub.eu/ says:
I sometimes contribute to science, I care a lot about Europe, innovation, biology & health
.
All stuff Ciro cares about too! Cool dude! In particular Ciro loved his quote of I should have loved biology.
He's writing a fun-sounding book about molecular biology as of 2022: berthub.eu/dna-book. Appears to be closed source though. Ciro wonders if he really needs to sell the book for money after all those years though, rather than just publishing it online for free.
Looking at Bert just brings the Dutch Golden Age, and more in particular Antonie van Leeuwenhoek to mind. Epic.
Video 1.
How life is Digital by Bert Hubert (2021)
Source. Just a "boring" overview of the central dogma of molecular biology ;-)
Microsoft Windows by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
A monopolistic operating system that only exists in the 2010's because of the IBM-linked historical lock-in and constant useless changes of the Microsoft Word document format to prevent cross operability.
It offers no technical advantages over free Linux distros in the late 2010's, and it is barely impossible to buy a non-Mac computer without paying for it, which should be illegal. European Union, time to use your regulatory powers.
The following anecdote illustrates Windows' pervasiveness. Ciro Santilli was once tutoring a high school student in Brazil, and decided to try and get her into programming. When the "Windows is not free" subject came up, the high school student was shocked: "I paid 100 dollars for this?". She never even knew it was there. To her, it was "just a computer".
Laws should really be passed forcing OEMs to allow you to not buy Microsoft Windows when buying a computer, European Union, why have you failed me in 2016??? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_of_Microsoft_Windows
blog.zorinaq.com/i-contribute-to-the-windows-kernel-we-are-slower-than-other-oper/ I Contribute to the Windows Kernel. We Are Slower Than Other Operating Systems. Here Is Why. by Marc Bevand (2013) has some interesting remarks:
There's also little incentive to create changes in the first place. On linux-kernel, if you improve the performance of directory traversal by a consistent 5%, you're praised and thanked. Here, if you do that and you're not on the object manager team, then even if you do get your code past the Ob owners and into the tree, your own management doesn't care. Yes, making a massive improvement will get you noticed by senior people and could be a boon for your career, but the improvement has to be very large to attract that kind of attention.
Video 1.
Bomb disposal robot by The IT Crowd
. Source.
Video 2.
Gabe Newell Blue Screen
. Source. During Game Developers Choice Awards acceptance presentation. TODO year.
Rust library by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
Python __getitem__ by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
Python Protocol by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created
Java library by Ciro Santilli 35 Updated +Created

Pinned article: ourbigbook/introduction-to-the-ourbigbook-project

Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
Video 1.
Intro to OurBigBook
. Source.
We have two killer features:
  1. topics: topics group articles by different users with the same title, e.g. here is the topic for the "Fundamental Theorem of Calculus" ourbigbook.com/go/topic/fundamental-theorem-of-calculus
    Articles of different users are sorted by upvote within each article page. This feature is a bit like:
    • a Wikipedia where each user can have their own version of each article
    • a Q&A website like Stack Overflow, where multiple people can give their views on a given topic, and the best ones are sorted by upvote. Except you don't need to wait for someone to ask first, and any topic goes, no matter how narrow or broad
    This feature makes it possible for readers to find better explanations of any topic created by other writers. And it allows writers to create an explanation in a place that readers might actually find it.
    Figure 1.
    Screenshot of the "Derivative" topic page
    . View it live at: ourbigbook.com/go/topic/derivative
    Video 2.
    OurBigBook Web topics demo
    . Source.
  2. local editing: you can store all your personal knowledge base content locally in a plaintext markup format that can be edited locally and published either:
    • to OurBigBook.com to get awesome multi-user features like topics and likes
    • as HTML files to a static website, which you can host yourself for free on many external providers like GitHub Pages, and remain in full control
    This way you can be sure that even if OurBigBook.com were to go down one day (which we have no plans to do as it is quite cheap to host!), your content will still be perfectly readable as a static site.
    Figure 5. . You can also edit articles on the Web editor without installing anything locally.
    Video 3.
    Edit locally and publish demo
    . Source. This shows editing OurBigBook Markup and publishing it using the Visual Studio Code extension.
    Video 4.
    OurBigBook Visual Studio Code extension editing and navigation demo
    . Source.
  3. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook-media/master/feature/x/hilbert-space-arrow.png
  4. Infinitely deep tables of contents:
    Figure 6.
    Dynamic article tree with infinitely deep table of contents
    .
    Descendant pages can also show up as toplevel e.g.: ourbigbook.com/cirosantilli/chordate-subclade
All our software is open source and hosted at: github.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook
Further documentation can be found at: docs.ourbigbook.com
Feel free to reach our to us for any help or suggestions: docs.ourbigbook.com/#contact