About Me

I’m Samuel Lowe (he/him), a mathematician, programmer, and hobbyist game designer in the greater Boston area. I graduated from Northeastern University with a B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics in 2023, and am a candidate to earn my M.S. in Applied Math in 2025. I mostly study data science, abstract algebra, and number theory (with a focus on elliptic curves). I’ve also worked on projects like nprcore.me and PaperScraper. You can follow these links to see my portfolio, LinkedIn, GitHub, and resume.

However, this site also hosts any miscellaneous notes, thoughts, or articles that I think others might find interesting, and to serve as a personal site to share my interests in an organized way. Here are some of the highlights:

Essays, articles, and explainers I’ve written
Living documents including recommended resources for self-studying math and computer science, my media backlog, etc.
Discussions of my lists of my favorite books, games, movies (on Letterboxd), Magic: The Gathering decks (on Moxfield) and card flavor text

All views expressed on this website are (more or less) my own, and don’t represent the views or opinions of my employer(s).

Articles

The A-B-C's of the abc Conjecture

Scatter plot of Pythagorean triples. Dearjean13, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons In 1994, the mathematics was turned on its head by Andrew Wiles’...

Jan 12, 2025

The Worst Project I Ever Finished

Tangled wires. McKay Savage from London, UK, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons When I was 15 and new to the internet, I made the mistake of making a Redd...

Jan 12, 2025

The Greedy Fallacy

The Orange Line on fire in Boston. Credit: John Gosselin There is a concept in computer programming called a greedy algorithm: an algorithm that accomplishes a task by solving a problem in several...

Aug 13, 2024

Greedy Algorithms

An advertisement for the 1924 film Greed. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons There is a concept in computer programming called a greedy algorithm: an algorithm that accompli...

Aug 13, 2024

A Survey of Intermediate Python Features

I’ve been writing Python for about 9 years now. In that time, I’ve stumbled on a lot of language features that confused me at first or that I wish I had learned about earlier; now that several frie...

Jul 6, 2024

What Game Designers Can Learn from Morrowind

Introduction A road in the Ascadian Isles Region Morrowind and its two expansions, Tribunal and Bloodmoon, are now over 20 years old. Despite its recognition as one of the greatest games ever mad...

Jun 2, 2024

Human Signal, Artificial Noise

We’ll All Be Happy Then. Harry Grant Dart, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons “How could an AI system seize control? There is a major misconception (driven by Hollywood and the media) that th...

Jun 2, 2024

Advice for Learning Math

Introduction The best way to learn math is to pursue a degree. Obviously, not everyone has the opportunity to do that. The next best thing is a solid path for self-study, which tends to be quite b...

Jun 1, 2024

Game Design Recommended Reading List

Obviously, everything I’ve written about games. You can also look at my favorite games to get an idea of what I’ve played and enjoy. What Games Are Like For Someone Who Doesn’t Play Games Co...