Mathematicians discover a perfect way to multiply (2019)
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2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
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HN comment orderBTW you may have noticed that the paper multiplication method we all learned in third grade is digit-by-digit convolution, which is an O[n^2] operation. But what does convolution in the time domain become when we switch to the frequency domain? It becomes digit-by-digit multiplication, which is O[n]. So now you see why the FFT is essential here. The extra factors of logn and log(logn) are about taking the FFT itself in both the forward and reverse directions. So fast multiplication…
It's from 2019 and discussed several times before. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Mathematicians%20Discover%20th... shows about 175 comments, cumulative, with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23919869 having 94.
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19474280
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 418
- Total comments
- 139
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-04-11 | Mathematicians Discover the Perfect Way to Multiply | headalgorithm | 8 | 0 |
| 2019-04-12 | Mathematicians Discover the Perfect Way to Multiply | pseudolus | 31 | 12 |
| 2020-07-22 | Mathematicians discover a perfect way to multiply (2019)First breakout · Best thread | mmphosis | 266 | 94 |
| 2022-03-08 | Mathematicians discover the perfect way to multiply (2019)Latest 20+ point return | galaxyLogic | 113 | 33 |