Cliff Pickover

Increase your sense of wonder. (Author of 50 books & 800 patents. Yale Ph.D.) "Pickover contemplates realms beyond our known reality." ~NY Times

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Ask me anything.

I will be happy to answer some of your questions, and will try to reply to a portion of your questions below in the coming days.

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

An extraterrestrial draws 4 circles on the map below. You must stay in one of the circles for the rest of your life, never to leave it. Which circle do you choose? Why?

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Mathematics. (I wonder if x could possibly turn out to be an integer?)

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Alien puzzle.

You can give this to kids, to stimulate their minds, if it's too easy for you.

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

The year is 1960. Warped Nostalgia from a parallel world.
Can you spot anything that is wrong here? (How long did it take you?)

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Mathematics, algorithms, space, time, reality.

Spiral formation, amidst a crystalline substrate.

By @beesandbombs, Used with permission.

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

"I will not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path, and I will leave a trail."

- Muriel Strode, "Wind-Wafted Wild Flowers," August 1903

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

The year is 2020. This infographic animation caught my eye today. Spreading of Covid-19.

Source: https://t.co/vPAgqkhuMb, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Life Within Life. Machine civilizations evolving at different scales, inside one another.

[saharan / さはら @shr_id]

Life Universe https://t.co/DLCTLNTqII

Explore the infinitely recursive universe of Game of Life! Works in real-time and is perfectly consistent, never fails to remember where you are and where you came from.

無限に再帰するライフゲームの宇宙を探索できる作品を作りました #indiedev

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Number of arrangements of a Rubik's Cube: 43,252,003,274,489,856,000. A gift for extraterrestrials.

[The Math Flow @TheMathFlow]

Solving a Rubik's Cube with graph theory.

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

This is a math meme, circulating widely on the Web (e.g., Facebook, X, Reddit, Instagram, TikTok, etc.)

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Mathematics and Mystery.

Wikipedia actually has an entry on a field of mathematics called "Pointless Topology — an approach to topology that avoids mentioning points": https://t.co/k5KjxfNpDf

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Math.

"3" is special for you in terms of nⁿ. Why? You’ll fondly remember when you were n=3 years old. But you’ll have few memories of n =2, and you’ll be dead when you're at n=4. Perhaps humans won't exist at n = 5?

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Share this with your family or friends, and watch the reactions. Perhaps some will scream. Others will laugh. Some will shake their heads with emotions that we can barely comprehend.

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

The numbers in our lives.

By Tom Gauld, @tomgauld, https://t.co/3lHlcm0lgz, Used with permission.

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

World Events. Could a domino the size of an ant topple a building?

[Beyond Tomorrow @OrgPhysics]

A domino can knock over another domino about 1.5x larger than itself. Here are the conditions under which a row of increasing dominoes is able to keep tumbling .

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Which "God" decided this would be the best way to set up the universe? Intelligence with no brain.

[Bluntly Put Philosopher (BPP) @SocraticScribe]

The roundworm has a brain, 302 neurons, tiny but real. A Dileptus has none. It's a single cell. No brain, no nerves, nothing. Yet both turn, back up, poke around, change their minds. If a single cell can explore with no brain, where does intelligence actually live?

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

“I believe that mathematical reality lies outside us, that our function is to discover or observe it, and that the theorems which we prove, and which we describe grandiloquently as our ‘creations,’ are simply the notes of our observations.”

- G. H. Hardy,Mathematician’s Apology

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Why did the prisoner choose the bread instead of the key? "If you know the answer, you're either a philosopher or a scientist." (This kind of puzzle and similar image have been circulating widely on the Web for many years.)

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Math. Geometry. Self-Similarity. Spiral Formation.

Fractal Seahorse.

By Dominic Rochon, @metafractalist, Used with permission.

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Music for Aliens. Beyond human hands. For a Perpetual Universe.