This paper investigates several methodologies for simulating soft-body objects using a mass-spring approach. The mechanisms are then expanded to include deformation information that can produce results suitable for use in realtime applications where visual impact rather than accuracy is desired, such as video games. Many methods use complex and esoteric methods to achieve physically accurate si...

Innovative applications often occur at the juncture of radically different domains of research. This paper describes an emerging application, called the analogical thesaurus, that arises at the boundary of two very different domains, the highly applied domain of information retrieval, and the esoteric domain of lexical metaphor interpretation. This application has the potential to not just to i...

This is a survey about the title question, written for people who (like the author) see logic as forbidding, esoteric, and remote from their usual concerns. Beginning with a crash course on Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory, it discusses oracle independence; natural proofs; independence results of Razborov, Raz, DeMillo-Lipton, Sazanov, and others; and obstacles to proving P vs. NP independent of str...

The geometric Langlands program can be described in a natural way by compactifying on a Riemann surface C a twisted version of N = 4 super Yang-Mills theory in four dimensions. The key ingredients are electric-magnetic duality of gauge theory, mirror symmetry of sigma-models, branes, Wilson and ’t Hooft operators, and topological field theory. Seemingly esoteric notions of the geometric Langlan...

Experienced litigators pride themselves on being able to do a quick study of any subject, no matter how esoteric. However, self-help frequently does not suffice when the subject is statistics. No matter how well-prepared the expert testimony on their side, the failure of many litigators to be able to understand the statistics of the opposition adequately to cross-examine effectively has doomed ...