tfgg

21 ms·

151.
by tfgg 12y ago
You might find a few of these papers interesting. The first challenge is working out the favoured crystal structure, including quantum corrections for the nuclear motion: http://journals.aps.org/prb/abstract/10.110
152.
by tfgg 12y ago
My understanding is that a UK PhD will generally be weaker than a US PhD and would probably do a postdoc before being "equal", but by that point you really have to be looking at publication record to make a judgement.
153.
by tfgg 12y ago
3.5-4 years funding is the norm these days in the UK, and departments start to get fined if you go over 4 years. Masters are usually an entry requirement, normally done as an integrated undergrad masters, so I was 4 years undergrad and 4 ye
154.
by tfgg 12y ago
Most of the comments seem to be referring to US programmes. I chose to do my PhD in the UK and not bother with US programmes, which seem to have a toxic culture (similar to interns in banks working ridiculous hours for no reason). I accept
155.
by tfgg 12y ago
Their application to quantum chemistry/condensed matter is certainly pretty exciting. Currently the practical method for realistic system sizes, density-function theory (DFT), is barely quantitatively accurate for many important system
156.
by tfgg 12y ago
I'd urge anyone to read the wikipedia page [1] before seriously engaging with the "electric universe", the proposals of which, such as cosmic electrical currents being more important than gravity in galaxy structure (~35 mins
157.
by tfgg 12y ago
ArXiv abstract links, which are preferable to direct links to the PDF: http://arxiv.org/abs/1411.2539 http://arxiv.org/abs/1410.1090 http://arxiv.org/abs/1411.4389
158.
by tfgg 12y ago
Does all the protesting by security agencies actually mean much, in terms of a signal? 1) If these measures are effective and stop them doing what they perceive to be their job, they'd have to protest. 2) If they had access to the info
159.
by tfgg 12y ago
Thanks for neatly explaining my scepticism of laboratory analogues and trying to draw conclusions from them. They're basically poor-man's computational simulations, with more errors because you've gone through another layer o
160.
by tfgg 12y ago
> One other thing worth pointing out is that weighing yourself daily and plotting it on a graph like this is a fantastic way to observe progress and stay motivated to stick to your new routine. This is absolutely the most important &quot
161.
by tfgg 12y ago
Is it me or is the linked article remarkably content free given the about of security babble it contains? The nice aspect of the Heartbleed branding was its simple and clear message, not having opaque sentences such as "Visibility into
162.
by tfgg 12y ago
One cool proposal is StarTram [1], which has a long (100km+) maglev run in an evacuated tunnel to a linear accelerator up the side of a mountain, ending in a magnetohydrodynamic "window" to keep the atmosphere out, launching out t
163.
by tfgg 12y ago
Just playing lots of Pontifex [1] ;) (ok, and a physics degree, but that's less relevant) [1] http://www.chroniclogic.com/pontifex.htm
164.
by tfgg 12y ago
I'm not an engineer, but it seems like having a single pivot at the bottom of a large mast would be favourable -- it'd allow the mast to freely flex in winds while being constrained by the support cables without causing damage, wh
165.
by tfgg 12y ago
"In 1974, Stephen Hawking used quantum mechanics to show that black holes emit radiation. Since then, scientists have detected fingerprints in the cosmos that are consistent with this radiation, identifying an ever-increasing list of t
166.
by tfgg 12y ago
Being a programmer in the modern age is like being a wizard, and it's no surprise that other wizards are concerned that people might learn their magic. I'd love it if everyone could program, it'd make my life a lot easier and
167.
by tfgg 12y ago
Lovely use of the 'with' keyword for stacks of transformations.
168.
by tfgg 12y ago
One could waste one's entire life trying to correct rubbish attempts at physics on the internet, especially when it's full of non-sequiturs like the video. But as a start, the description of quantum mechanics is nonsense and I&#x2
169.
by tfgg 12y ago
That video is incoherent nonsense, especially from the '5th dimension' and onwards, and in no way resembles the modern understanding of dimensions in physics or mathematics. I wouldn't bother watching it except for entertainm
170.
by tfgg 12y ago
This argument and explanation is constantly coming up on the subreddit askscience. I don't violently oppose it as much as some do, since I think it's somewhat helpful, but I would like to say that my preferred interpretation is th
171.
by tfgg 12y ago
I was interested for a source, so I found this: http://www.greens-efa.eu/nuclear-safety-in-europe-following-... "23. Calls on the Commission, the Member States, the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Bank fo
172.
by tfgg 12y ago
As someone who has been at one of those institutions and is currently at the other, I haven't noticed much in the way of hackdays at either... Maybe it's changed at Cambridge, but I didn't see much sign of brewing collaborati
173.
by tfgg 12y ago
I personally go with a computability/compatability argument. If 'you' are some sort of process analogous to a computer program, you can be totally deterministic yet unpredictable. You can't predict in advance the outcome
174.
by tfgg 12y ago
None of the things mentioned so far that we "don't know how they work" are on a par with this. Flying with wings doesn't violate fundamental, and experimentally very well supported, symmetries like conservation of moment
175.
by tfgg 12y ago
It was an number for the length of a chemical bond that I had easily to hand, other bonds aren't significantly different, definitely not 5 Angstrom. Also, people working on graphene and related materials are trying damn hard to make ch
176.
by tfgg 12y ago
1.5nm is more like 10 atoms across, given that, for example, a C-C bond is 0.154 nm. Not that that helps tremendously :)
177.
by tfgg 12y ago
I think this is the most interesting thing I've learnt from this thread: that most other countries didn't use @ as "at the rate of", and hence had names for the funny symbol on their typewriters that only began to be use
178.
by tfgg 12y ago
No problem. Actually, I personally found that a pretty intuitive understanding of linear algebra & vector calculus makes quite a lot of ML straight forward to approach geometrically.
179.
by tfgg 12y ago
You apply a non-linear function (usually some sigmoid) on the output vector after each matrix product. Otherwise, you'd be correct and any multi-layer ANN could be expressed as a single layer network.
180.
by tfgg 12y ago
> And as I said in another comments, the community that I find the most interesting are the ones which are the most heavily moderated : /r/askscience, /r/games and HN. Less trolls, less spam, less racism. I agree, and

More ›