mnl

21 ms·

151.
by mnl 8y ago
This happens all the time here when it comes to physics. Other greatest hits are bickering endlessly about interpretations of QM deeming unacceptable the shut-up-and-calculate approach that 90% of physicists have no problem with and to a mi
152.
by mnl 8y ago
Personally I prefer interacting with women because the odds of having an intelligent exchange are better, that's my experience. Also that there are more dull males than females, and more raw geniuses males than females. But that's
153.
by mnl 8y ago
Just no, and I don't understand what's the point in posting uneducated personal opinions here and stating them as facts. The "European dark ages" had literally zero progress in algebra, it was Boethius's De arithmet
154.
by mnl 8y ago
Earning a Nobel prize helps.
155.
by mnl 8y ago
It got close, but it was limited by its design/diameter, such are the woes of synchroton radiation and accelerating the lighter charged particles. As far as I know they pushed its limits all they could (burning it) before shutting it d
156.
by mnl 8y ago
I don't understand how it's possible that a "social scientist" thinks that he has identified the great problem and its solution in every other academic discipline. Well, actually I do understand that, I've been arou
157.
by mnl 8y ago
You're opening a can of worms there.
158.
by mnl 8y ago
Such CASs do exist indeed, check Reduce: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduce_(computer_algebra_syste... Which is awesome, BTW. There's also Giac/Xcas: https://www-fourier.ujf-grenoble.fr/~par
159.
by mnl 8y ago
No, he's not an amateur but a retired statistian. And the fact that LaTeX is the standard for DIY typesetting in academia nowadays has nothing to do with your competence as a mathematician, or the rigour of a proof published as a Word
160.
by mnl 8y ago
Humans have general intelligence, that's why they recognize lane dividers and can tell where a truck ends, we kind of expect such things. Also why inebriated people can drive somehow (of course they shouldn't but I'm making a
161.
by mnl 8y ago
They had a business model: you provide a service to your customers and your customers pay for it. As the service is awesome, customers stay. That's why for instance in Spain, it has been the de facto messaging standard for 7-8 years. P
162.
by mnl 8y ago
No, a Texas section APS meeting presentation about some fun academic exercise is simply some fun academic exercise for a Texas section APS meeting. If you're not familiar with these things, well this is a profession, it takes more than
163.
by mnl 8y ago
Yes, I've checked it and understood what it said. If you take spin, which can't exist by itself in classical physics and use it in a semiclassical approximation you get a good enough approach for your problem that has workable mat
164.
by mnl 8y ago
Those were the days, but going back to photocopy world won't be very good for productivity and maybe the quality of research. Being able to check everything easily is an incredible advantage. And then there's this problem of disap
165.
by mnl 8y ago
That's very good news, yet I imagine the publisher can claim rights over composition, layout, typesetting and the pdfs themselves. This is quite a problem as who's going to do all that again, particularly when it comes to dead aut
166.
by mnl 8y ago
They have almost all the assets. It's good trying to put pressure on them, because they've been abusing their position for too long, but if you can't access legally decades of references you and your institution have this pro
167.
by mnl 8y ago
No, they can't explain ferromagnetism. Sometimes you use a semiclassical approximation, but that's a technical term. Don't look into the words used in Physics, this is not a social science, words in themselves don't carr
168.
by mnl 8y ago
No, I'm actually saying that everything is QM, and yet for some phenomena you can use instead of that some effective theories called classical physics, that have these nice properties of needing just calculus and vector analysis and be
169.
by mnl 8y ago
I hope the plan isn't sending the A-Team to Mars. People are trivializing this idea of bootstrapping a whole civilization in a very, very, very hostile environment and I don't understand why. After two weeks, there better be a re
170.
by mnl 8y ago
We think we see classical physics, but this micro/macro divide is not that clear-cut. It's more like a convenient textbook classification. For instance you can build a very macro magnet which is not classical physics at all, you c
171.
by mnl 8y ago
All of it: that's the actual understanding of the world, right there. What else should it be? I don't expect the laws of Nature being intuitive for advanced mammalian brains ultimately.
172.
by mnl 8y ago
Maybe the bad idea is insisting in having a classical physics pictorical interpretation when there's no reason why there should be one. At some point having just Maths is the more reasonable outlook.
173.
by mnl 8y ago
I've always wondered about this kind of companies what's really stopping them from giving access to your data to your employer, your health insurance provider or any law enforcement/state organization. Of course any of those
174.
by mnl 8y ago
My thoughts exactly about n-gate. There's this funny assumption that the Earth might get hit by an asteroid but such an event can't happen to Mars. I'd like to know why Mars is asteroid-safe. Also what's the rationale in
175.
by mnl 8y ago
I've met (teaching) too many teens that can't really use a computer. The procedural and hierarchical structure abstractions, even the desktop metaphor is lost on them. Idk if there's much of a future for widespread general pu
176.
by mnl 8y ago
There's of course a different narrative for what happened. One that takes into account what is a 4 km trip in a cave with mud and narrow passages where contraptions could get stuck making further rescue attempts simply impossible.
177.
by mnl 8y ago
Actually Saab has been producing fine Swedish jet fighters for 60 years. Ever heard of the JAS 39 Gripen?
178.
by mnl 8y ago
When it comes to the cost of the mission those differences are peanuts. I guess that at some point SpaceX will find out that the the price of the launch wasn't the bottleneck after all.
179.
by mnl 8y ago
The thing is you haven't asked anything, you've made your own assumptions and presented them as facts. There is a single accelerator that provides the proton beams: the LHC, and there are two independently designed and built huge
180.
by mnl 8y ago
So you don't know statistics nor how observations are made in particle physics... Do you think that we collect these things in a jar and make a picture? Of course you look for a signal on top of a background, after modelling it within

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