4 ms·

Not sure what criteria / desiderata you have for a picture. Like, how do you want the different possible outcomes to be depicted together? Are you asking for a

by drdeca 5y ago

Not sure what criteria / desiderata you have for a picture. Like, how do you want the different possible outcomes to be depicted together? Are you asking for a picture of 2 spheres and then another sphere? What are asking for?

jiggawatts 5y ago
Isosurfaces? False colours? Volumetric rendering? Cross-sections showing field strength through that plane? Field strength at solid surfaces? Pick any one. I find even questions like this revealing: Why are you asking me such incredibly basic questions instead of having a dozen renderings ready to hyperlink? If you ask a NASA guy to link some airflow simulations, he won't retort with "what criteria would satisfy you?". He'll just straight up link a bunch of gorgeous renderings of physically accurate airflow simulations. Not cartoons.
- drdeca 5y ago
  Well, I’m not a particle physics guy (or a physics person in general. I’m more a math guy.), so it’s not as bad as if someone really in the field responded as I did. I guess my confusion (which may be from ignorance of physics) is about how to handle depicting superpositions of whether or not the electron has been absorbed by the proton. I don’t mean that that isn’t a problem with a good (known?) solution, just I don’t know one.
  - jiggawatts 5y ago
    Precisely. This is the "measurement problem", and nobody can give you a straight answer. This is why I give this acid test: it reveals this gap in the theory that is otherwise easy to gloss over. It's the difference between pseudocode on a whiteboard, and something that compiles, runs, and gives the correct answer. You can hand-wave one of those and claim correctness. The other will give you a compiler error.
    - drdeca 5y ago
      No, I think this is just because you either haven’t been precise enough in what you want, or you are asking for something unreasonable. (Possibly a combination of the two) This is why I asked you to specify what you were asking for.

by drdeca 5y ago

jiggawatts 5y ago

Isosurfaces? False colours? Volumetric rendering? Cross-sections showing field strength through that plane? Field strength at solid surfaces? Pick any one. I find even questions like this revealing: Why are you asking me such incredibly basic questions instead of having a dozen renderings ready to hyperlink? If you ask a NASA guy to link some airflow simulations, he won't retort with "what criteria would satisfy you?". He'll just straight up link a bunch of gorgeous renderings of physically accurate airflow simulations. Not cartoons.

drdeca 5y ago
Well, I’m not a particle physics guy (or a physics person in general. I’m more a math guy.), so it’s not as bad as if someone really in the field responded as I did. I guess my confusion (which may be from ignorance of physics) is about how to handle depicting superpositions of whether or not the electron has been absorbed by the proton. I don’t mean that that isn’t a problem with a good (known?) solution, just I don’t know one.
- jiggawatts 5y ago
  Precisely. This is the "measurement problem", and nobody can give you a straight answer. This is why I give this acid test: it reveals this gap in the theory that is otherwise easy to gloss over. It's the difference between pseudocode on a whiteboard, and something that compiles, runs, and gives the correct answer. You can hand-wave one of those and claim correctness. The other will give you a compiler error.
  - drdeca 5y ago
    No, I think this is just because you either haven’t been precise enough in what you want, or you are asking for something unreasonable. (Possibly a combination of the two) This is why I asked you to specify what you were asking for.