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The Beauty of Roots

2023/09/30 by Baez, John C.
#Combinatorics (math.CO) #FOS: Mathematics #History and Overview (math.HO)

paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2310.00326

Abstract

A "Littlewood polynomial" is a polynomial whose coefficients are all 1 or -1. The set of all complex roots of all Littlewood polynomials exhibits many complicated, beautiful and fascinating patterns. Some fractal regions of this set closely resemble "dragon sets" formed by iterated function systems. A heuristic argument for this is known, but no precise theorem along these lines has been proved. We invite the reader to try.

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