April 12, 2026
One button to calc them all
All elementary functions from a single binary operator
One magic math button? Nerds cheer, skeptics ask “But can it add”
TLDR: A researcher says one operator—exp(x) minus log(y), plus the number 1—can recreate every common math function. The crowd splits between wonder and side-eye: jokes about “brainf*ck for math,” demands to show how to add, and debates over whether EML-powered hardware could beat today’s math chips.
A mathematician claims one weird trick—an operator called EML, short for “exp minus log”—can build every button on your calculator, from plus and minus to sine, square root, and even constants like π. Think a single LEGO brick that somehow snaps into any shape. Cue the comment circus. BobbyTables2 storms in with the vibe-check: “How do you actually add with this?”—instant reality check for the dazzled crowd. selcuka drops the meme of the day: “So, like brainf*ck for math?” If you know the famously minimal (and painful) esoteric programming language, you’re already chuckling.
Meanwhile, the theory heads are linking deep cuts, with peterlk calling back to a mind-bender talk about deriving the Y combinator—yes, the functional-programming magic spell—from Ruby lambdas, complete with a YouTube link. The practical crowd, led by nonfamous, is laser-focused on the real world: could a chip built to do EML super-fast beat your usual math coprocessor? And supermdguy is already dreaming up an analog calculator made of only EML “gates.”
The mood: half awe, half side-eye. Fans love the elegance—one node, infinite math—especially the claim it can even help computers rediscover formulas from data. Skeptics want receipts: speed, simplicity, and whether this is genius or just a very fancy way to press the same button a million times.
Key Points
- •Introduces a single binary operator eml(x,y)=exp(x)−ln(y) that, with constant 1, generates the full set of elementary functions and constants.
- •Provides constructive examples (e.g., exp(x)=eml(x,1); a nested form for ln) and claims analogous constructions for all standard operations.
- •EML expressions form uniform binary trees governed by the grammar S -> 1 | eml(S,S).
- •Demonstrates gradient-based symbolic regression using EML-tree circuits and the Adam optimizer.
- •Shows exact recovery of closed-form elementary functions from numerical data at shallow tree depths (up to 4).